


Between Jade and Green

by Bloodyshadow1



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Awkward Sexual Situations, Black Romance, Blood Drinking, F/F, F/M, Feelings, Femslash, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Friendship, One-Sided Relationship, Other, Rainbow Drinkers, after SBURB, after the game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-04 23:56:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 54,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloodyshadow1/pseuds/Bloodyshadow1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nepeta gets a weird feeling from one of the trolls after the game is won and she needs to talk to someone about it. Someone she can trust, Kanaya the rainbowdrinker.  But as she is being helped can she she help the shy jadeblood come out of her shell and find someone who deserves her.  Not an Alternate Universe fic, but it is after the kids won the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dreams and Cattrolls

**Author's Note:**

> I really adore this pairing far more than I should since very few others do, but I help it. Cattrolls and Vampire could ask for more? Please be kind this is my first real fanfiction and any help or comments would appreciated.

Kanaya Maryam walked down the streets of New Earthernia early one morning. Supposedly the new world was an equal mix of Alternia and the human’s home world Earth, but since Kanaya had never seen their alien friends home world beyond the small view from her screen she couldn’t tell. She was grateful to the humans for making the world habitable to both of their races, when she expressed her gratitude they told her that that’s what friends do. Such a response perplexed Kanaya; it wasn’t that her own friends were selfish, or at least most of them weren’t all the time, but they were different from the humans nonetheless.

  
If asked, most of the other trolls would be willing to give their assistance or support in any endeavor that didn’t involve annihilating the species, but that was just it. Save for perhaps Feferi, Nepeta, and herself, very few of the other trolls would be willing to offer their support without prompting. Tavros and Aradia would be willing perhaps Kanaya admitted, but first Tavros would have to get over his shyness and make the offer and Aradia would have to be in one of her more focused moods throughout, so the chance of those two offering help without being asked was rather low. Yet, even such behavior seemed so alien to troll kind seemed almost second nature to the humans, they would constantly anticipate the needs of any others around and act accordingly without any communication at all. That wasn’t to say that humans couldn’t be selfish, but on a whole they seemed to be more open with giving; perhaps they, or one of them, would have more sarcastic complaints to go along, but they would still lend a hand with a smile on their lips.

  
Kanaya let out a soft, yet dignified, sigh there was another reason that she was out here so early to do here shopping when the shops were just barely opened by the consorts. She picked out some nice light green fabric from a bubbly salamander and gave his two boondollars for the exchange. No one besides her and the consorts was up at this hour, even if Earthernia’s sun didn’t burn the flesh of trolls other than herself, the rest of her species was still adjusting to being active during the day. Not even the humans were awake at this time usually, which gave Kanaya time to think, something that often eluded her when surrounded by others who always needed something! It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy helping her friends, but sometimes, she just couldn’t put up with the whining.

  
But the real reason Kanaya always got up so early to have time for herself was because it made her feel less awkward when thinking about quadrants. She liked to think that she was above obsessing about such things, like Eridan or Vriska, but in truth Kanaya found herself thinking more and more about her two empty quadrants as time went on. It was easier to ignore them when they started Sgrub; the constant fighting with monsters tended to take over her thoughts more, but surprisingly enough several of her fellow players didn’t seem to have that problem. And when they were trapped in Veil, Kanaya spent more time trying to keep all of her friends alive than find partners to fill her quadrants. She failed at that time, to keep all of her friends alive, after everything was said and done it mattered little, but she still couldn’t help the helpless feelings she had as one by one her friend’s lives were snuffed out. That time was over though; they had settled things with Jack and Lord English and somehow came out victorious with their rag-tag crew of heroes. They were rewarded for their efforts, a whole new world as was the games purpose and all of their friends returned to life.

  
Now with the dangers gone, slowly yet surely, they started to fill each other’s quadrants; which Kanaya was a bit bitter about. While she had succeeded in filling her pale and ashen quadrant, her caliginous and flushed remained empty and lacked any prospects. There was no doubt that she was happy for her friends finding those special ones to be close too and she wasn’t the only one who was alone in that department, but still she felt so bitter when she watched the others scurry about trying to find the one scurry about trying to find the one. If she could join them it would be one thing, but do to her preferences, it left her with fewer options than the rest. It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried, when night the danger had passed she had met with Vriska to see if there was anything that remained of her longstanding red crush on the blueblood. But like before the relationship was one sided, Vriska showed her much affection during their trial relationship, but Vriska was too greedy and ambitious to devote herself to only one partner. It may have made sense to Vriska, but Kanaya couldn’t bear it anymore, and though Kanaya still ached to be close to her, they decided that it was better to break it off then and there. So Kanaya lost her potential matesprit that she had loved from afar for sweeps; they remained close friends, but Kanaya couldn’t bear the pain of putting Vriska into any quadrant than red, so friends were all they would ever be. Vriska moved on to attempt a black romance with Tavros, Gamzee already filling his flushed quadrant, and Kanaya attempted to move on as well.

  
It was hard though, while Vriska may not be able to be tied down, she certainly didn’t like to give up what she had no matter what. Every now and then she would play with Kanaya’s feelings, if only to remind her that the spidertroll would always be a part of the rainbowdrinker’s heart, regardless of her want to toss her out. Sometimes Vriska’s reminders were subtle, at least for her; an extra-long cuddle when they embraced each other as friends, promenading through the village in one of the outfits that Kanaya, one made that made even the blueblood’s boney curves look sensual, or when she would play flirt with one of the others and then give Kanaya a wink. Other times Vriska’s actions towards the jade blood weren’t so subtle such as lounging naked on one of the couches of her hive as if she owned the places and dragging the rainbowdrinker into an empty alleyway for a quick grope and sloppy make out session. Vriska always knew what she was doing, but she didn’t care, on some levels she may have felt bad about the way she treated her friend, but on other more primal levels she got off on knowing she could drag Kanaya in to her bed with but a few words.  
After the fiasco with Vriska officially ended, and unofficially continued to this day, Kanaya attempted to turn to the other girl she was closest too, the human Rose. She had been intrigued with the pale alien since they first discovered the creatures so long ago; her wit and beauty made Kanaya blush jade just thinking about her, and the signals that Kanaya thought Rose was sending her made her wish beyond anything that this snarky broad was the one. But alas that was another red relationship that would never be, as Rose found love in the arms of the human John, such an odd combination of personalities, but as frustrated she was at John when she first heard the news Kanaya wished them well. Rose was more attentive than Vriska was and saw what Kanaya had been pushing for in their friendship and apologized for leading her on, unintentional though it was. The pity the pale blonde felt for Kanaya wasn’t at all red enough to be matesprit material, but Kanaya admitted she had deluded herself just fine in seeing things that weren’t there. But Rose wasn’t a long infatuation, so when she came out and told her that there wasn’t no way a red romance was to be formed it stung more than hurt. However though she once again lost a potential matesprit she did find a sympathetic moiral in the girl which helped dampen the sting, but still left an empty feeling.

  
After being passed over by Rose Kanaya decided that to take a break from the red search, if her heart was broken again she didn’t know what she would do. She instead devoted herself to her work, sewing, and her ashen responsibilities as the auxiliatrix to almost everyone on the planet, how was it once put, the village’s two-wheeled device when it comes to auspisticing. It was in some ways rewarding when done correctly and filled her with warmth, but even in the best cases, when all was said and done, Kanaya was still very lonely.

  
While she wasn’t even half done with her errands, Kanaya took the time to sit on one of the large rocks at the edge of their small village and warm herself under the new sun’s rays. The light felt good on her pale grey skin, much different from the sun of their home world that was so harsh even to her that she rarely engaged such activities. It was simple pleasures like this that allowed her to forget about her relationship problems and other responsibilities, if only for a few blissful moments. Perhaps she shouldn’t have sat down, she was far more tired that she realized, her rainbowdrinker body only felt slight fatigue when her old body would be screaming for rest, but even it had its limits. Before she realized it Kanaya’s eyes started to grow heavy and she fell to half-awake daze.

  
Thankfully the dreams of Alternia’s past weren’t as strong on their new home, but from time to time one of the more traumatizing moments would slip into the unconscious mind. If asked later what the dream was about Kanaya would be unable to tell the full details of it, the little she remembered of the dream made even less sense. The only thing she remembered about her dream was that in it she was a young troll girl wearing attire similar to the fairy girl outfit she had made Vriska sweeps ago. Whoever the sharply dressed girl was didn’t matter at the time as she was being hunted by a huge and feral feline lusi, she ran for hours until she reached the cliff edge. Just after she turned around she saw the feline lusi pounce towards her and the fear she felt seemed so real that if she wasn’t jarred awake at that moment, Kanaya thought that she may have died for real as strange as that sounded.

  
“The curious huntress slowly tries to discofur if the sleeping rainbowdrinker is prey or some new exciting creature,” an adorable voice abruptly roused the sleeping jadeblood from her nap and in her surprise to see Nepeta’s face on her lap, looking up at Kanaya with her huge adorable smile. Due to the nature of her awakening Kanaya let out a surprise yelp and tumbled head over heels from off the rock. This would surely be considered humorous by an observer Kanaya thought as she remained where she tumbled for a moment if only to try and pretend such an event didn’t occur. “I’m sorry Kanaya,” Nepeta managed to get out as she tried to stifle her giggles; “if I knew waking you would of clawused you to wake so erratically I wouldn’t of.” But as Kanaya was too embarrassed to move much less answer Nepeta’s face turned to worry and dropped any hint of the humor moments before, “you’re not hurt are you Kanaya? I’m so sorry I really didn’t think that it would frighten you that much.” Now Nepeta was worrying far too much for Kanaya to allow.

  
“I am quite alright Nepeta; I was just a little startled that’s all. The only thing on me that is bruised is my pride, and perhaps my bottom,” Kanaya said absolving the cattroll’s guilt while giving her bottom a nice pat down to make sure everything was still attached. “It wasn’t your fault at all; in fact I’m glad that you woke me when you did, I was caught in a rather frightening and realistic daymare. If you hadn’t come along I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come along so gallantly with your practical jokes; after all we’ve experienced I’ve learned to not underestimate the power of dreams. So I lay no blame upon you, in fact I am most grateful as your actions may have saved me from a terrible fate.” Kanaya said gently patting Nepeta’s head between her horns in a playful manner. She didn’t actually believe that just because she would have been killed in the dream that her waking self would be in any danger, but it didn’t hurt to be careful and to stroke the cattroll’s ego a bit.  
Nepeta let out a sigh of relief when she learned that Kanaya wasn’t hurt by her actions and to be honest her cheeks were colored a light green at the rainbowdrinker’s praise of her. “What was the dream about, if I may ask?” She asked curiously with a slight tilt of her head.

  
Kanaya turned her head away from the cattroll and returned to sit on the rock to contemplate her dream, to be honest she didn’t even remember most of it. “I can’t remember really, just bits and pieces, no need to concern you over,” Kanaya assured her.

  
“Alright, if you’re sure.” Nepeta said knowing that Kanaya wasn’t telling the whole truth to her, but for the moment she would let it go. “You know you can always talk to me Kanaya,” Nepeta swore to the jade blood as she gave her an unexpected hug. “After all I can do more than just rescue pretty trolls from danger,” she gave Kanaya another grin before hopping off her.

  
Now it was Kanaya’s turn to blush, but Nepeta’s promise did make her feel good inside, almost as good as the hug did. She wrote off the slightly red feelings that she may be feeling at the moment to the lack of physical contact with anyone else though, not the cattroll. To be honest she knew that she could be feeling such feelings about Nepeta; though they were friends and enjoyed each other’s company the two of them had never been particularly close to each other. No, her feelings certainly came from her long dry spell and Nepeta waking her from her troubling dream, not the cattroll herself. Kanaya was sure that she would be feeling the same way for Eridan or Dave if they had acted similarly to how Nepeta had. “I appreciate it Nepeta, I truly do,” Kanaya said in an attempt to push such outrageous thoughts out her head. “I will keep that in mind. But I must ask, what are you doing up and about so early? It is not even midday yet, the rest of our kind don’t normally wake this hour for anything and you particularly need your rest do to your late night hunts.”

  
The smile on Nepeta’s face fell before Kanaya could finish her thought, not completely leaving, but becoming more of a fake grin. “It’s nothing really; I just kind of wanted to be able to talk to you and I know that you are the only one up early so I thought I might as well get up early too.” Kanaya could smell the nervousness in Nepeta, not the same embarrassed nervousness that Kanaya all too often felt, Nepeta was afraid of something.

  
“Nepeta it’s quite alright, if you need to talk to me than please feel welcome,” Kanaya brushed her arm gently in an attempt to prove that Nepeta was safe with her regardless of what she wanted to talk about.

  
Nepeta took hold of Kanaya’s hand for a moment as if she didn’t believe that it was real, but eventually she gave the graceful troll girl a sincere smile. “Thanks Kanaya I’m gratefur. It’s just… it’s something that I need to talk about in private,” she explained while looking over her shoulder.

  
Kanaya was really curious now, “if that is what you want Nepeta we can talk in my hive, no one will be there I promise. If you give me an hour to finish up my errands I will meet you there and we can talk however long you would like.” Kanaya offered.

  
“I can help you if you want!” Nepeta exclaimed quickly. But realizing what she sounded like she looked down with green cheeks, “you meow… with the errands. I would feel weird waiting in your hive all alone, like waiting for prey since I know you aren’t. This way I can help you finish up early and you won’t have to rush on my account.”

  
For a moment Kanaya just looked at the silly troll before her trying to justify her words and forced herself to stifle a laugh. “Truthfully I would welcome both the company and some help if you would like to join me,” she said reaching for her basket, but Nepeta beat her too it.

  
“I’ll get that for you, I’m supposed to help you remeowmber, the least I can do is carry the baskitty, for you.” Nepeta took the basket and started towards town, whatever was going on with her at least for now she seemed happier and Kanaya followed her wondering what the greenblood wanted to talk about that needed to be so secret.


	2. The Ex and Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a long shopping trip the two mid spectrum troll abscond to Kanaya's hive and the story takes an interesting turn and what Nepeta is acting so odd about is revealed.

It actually took Kanaya much longer than an hour to finish her shopping; it may have been due to Nepeta constantly fiddling around with whatever fabric or yarn that she bought. Still, she was grateful for the company and even happier to have the cattroll acting like her normal self. Still as they finished up and made their way to Kanaya’s hive, she couldn’t help but wonder what Nepeta needed to talk to her about; surely Equius would be more than willing to listen to his moiral whatever it was. What could it be that she needed to talk to Kanaya of all people and such a formal request; it couldn’t be anything like the silly shipping talk that Nepeta liked to engage in.

“Come in Nepeta and make yourself at home dear,” Kanaya said pushing the door open with her hip, her arms full of bags and bits that she purchased earlier that day. Her lights were off, the windows let in more than enough light to see, but she was sure that she left them on when she left earlier that morning. 

“Hey fussyfangs, you’re out of those human chips,” Vriska said lounging on Kanaya’s couch with all the sunlight focused on her like a spotlight. Thankfully she wasn’t naked this time or Kanaya would have lost it, instead she was shirtless with a white bra exposed to the whole world lying about sensually. The whole thing was rather poorly performed though, while Vriska might have been trying to play coy but it was just too overdramatic, like Vriska herself, that if it wasn’t for Kanaya’s unresolved red feeling for the spidertroll it would almost be laughable.

Kanaya couldn’t help but stare at the display of gray flesh before her, she knew that Vriska just wanted to prove that if she called Kanaya would answer, but it took all of her will to turn away. Well, all of her will and Nepeta’s presence, “wow Wriska, is this what you do with Kanaya every day,” the kittytroll asked curiously peeking out from Kanaya’s doorway.

When Vriska saw that it wasn’t just Kanaya who was present she flailed about in embarrassment. “No Nepeta!” Kanaya shouted with a green face, “This is just Vriska playing a little joke on me. Right Vriska?” Kanaya spat more than questioned.

“Yeah I’m soooooooo kidding, aren’t I such a riot, am I right,” Vriska said rolling her eyes. “Well I can see you have company Fussyfangs, so I won’t overstay my welcome.” She said as she pulled on her shirt. She started to leave with the intent of hitting Kanaya with her shoulder but thought of something better. “I’ll see you later deeeeeeeear,” she said and quickly gave Kanaya a quick but passionate kiss before dashing out the door before she could say anything.

Kanaya looked dumbstruck for a moment, before letting out a low snarl and slamming her door in anger, her face flushed both from embarrassment and rage. Before she could get too far from the door she heard a shy knock at her door, to Kanaya’s embarrassment she couldn’t control herself and flung the door open, “What!” She challenged her visitor; she really wasn’t in the mood to entertain any other annoying troll.

“Sorry Miss Meowyan,” a small kitty voice came from outside of the door, “I thought that we were going to talk, but I can come back if you would like. I didn’t mean to inpurrupt you and Vriska in your redrom rituals, I could come back if you want to call her back,” Nepeta said fiddling with her tail meekly, trying to not look in the rainbowdrinker’s angry eyes close to tears.

When Kanaya saw Nepeta almost crying on her hivestep she gave herself the hardest face palm that she could as punishment. “No Nepeta, I’m sorry that wasn’t meant to be directed at you I promise,” Kanaya said attempting to be soothing to the crying troll before her. “I was just frustrated with Vriska and forgot that we were going to talk about something important that’s all, it wasn’t meant to be directed at you. She just makes me so…,” she let out a quite rage yell and screamed into one of her many decorative throw pillows.

“Well still,” Nepeta looked rather sheepish watching the scene, “those who are red for each other and in a relationship need time together, even if it’s short. If you wanted to catcall her back and quickly fill a pail with her I could stand outside for a while.” Nepeta suggested blushing at her suggestion.

“We aren’t together anymore,” Kanaya said trying to keep herself under control, she knew that it wasn’t the cattroll’s fault for not knowing that. The two of them never really advertised their relationship, though everyone knew that they were together, but few knew about their breakup so they assumed that the two of them were still together.

“Really,” Nepeta asked surprised, “but I thought you had feelings for Wriska for a long time, sweeps even, you haven’t even been together a sweep then.” 

“It just didn’t work out between us,” Kanaya said bitterly, “I wanted a more traditional relationship, and Vriska wanted to have as many as possible. To her credit she did try to change for me, more than she would have been willing to do for anyone else,” Kanaya admitted with a sad smile. “But in the end we were just too different; Vriska enjoyed being chased and chasing more than the reality of being in a relationship, especially one where she was to be with only one other. So we attempted to break things off before there was nothing but scorn left over when we were forced to break up or kill each other. For a while it did work out for the best, we were cordial to each other if rather stiff, but on friendly terms, but that didn’t last long. Vriska didn’t like to be tied down to one person, but she did enjoy other parts of our relationship, especially the physical aspect,” Kanaya said while blushing. “Well the physical aspects of our relationship and the power she gets from it. I think the fact that she knows that with a word she can have me up against the wall filling a pail with her arouses her almost as much as the act itself.” Kanaya wasn’t blushing anymore even though she should have been embarrassed saying these things in front of another like this, but she had never spoken of her feelings to another before; now that she started her feelings flooded out. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing to me, she couldn’t, she wouldn’t if she knew, but still, it makes me feel worthless that that’s all she wants me for,” Kanaya had started to walk away from Nepeta as she spoke and put her fist through the wall that was closest to her. It didn’t hurt and barely made her feel better, but she needed to do something to get these feelings out of her or her tears would start to flow.

It turns out that she didn’t have to hold back anything though; Nepeta’s arms snaked around Kanaya’s waist from behind. “It’s okay Kanaya, it is okay to cry and let the feelings out, it’s not a bad thing,” she quietly whispered to the taller troll girl to comfort her. Nepeta knew how to comfort people, she did it with her moiral all the time, which was hard with his monstrous strength, but she learned how to deal. “I know what it’s like to have feelings for someone who can’t ever love you back the way you want them too, and I learned from my own experiences that it’s okay to cry whether alone or with another person, or even a crowd,” she continued to hold Kanaya and make comforting purring noises even when the jade blood made feeble attempts to push her away.

A few moments later Kanaya stopped her crying and started to feel better, if only a little bit, “thank you Nepeta, I needed that,” Kanaya admitted gratefully. “But I’m fine now,” she said brushing the last tear from her eyes, “you can let go now.”

“If you’re sure Kanaya,” Nepeta said not entirely buying the jade blood’s words, but letting go all the same. “We can have a proper feelings jam if you really want to talk about it, or if you need to talk about it,” Nepeta proposed emphasizing the difference. “Or whenever you feel like you have to talk to someone again like this you can come find me day or night and we will discuss it.”

“Perhaps later,” Kanaya conceded, “but you came over for a reason and that is what we should discuss,” she insisted.

“Oh right, my problem,” it was Nepeta’s turn to look uncomfortable now, “I’m sure my problem can wait a couple of minutes if you want to chat more about your relationship issues.” Nepeta insisted, not fooling Kanaya in the slightest.

“Whatever problems I am personally dealing with can surely wait until you and I talk about what you came here to talk about,” Kanaya instead rather sternly. When she saw Nepeta’s face have rather unsure look on it though, she changed her approach, “Nepeta,” she said kindly laying her hand on the cattroll’s shoulder, “you helped me a lot with only a few minutes of a hug, you told me that I could talk to you about my feelings whenever, please let me do the same for you,” she said gently in a tone not unlike the cattroll’s own a few moments ago.

Nepeta looked up into the Rainbowdrinker’s warm yellow eyes and she knew that she could trust her. “It’s kind of hard to explain,” she began taking a seat on Kanaya’s couch, “please don’t think I’m crazy. I think I’ve been hearing voices in my head,” she looked down and expected the worst to come. 

“Gone on please Nepeta,” Kanaya said patiently, taking a seat across from her companion.

Nepeta looked up in shock; there wasn’t any judgment on Kanaya’s face or doubt, just a purrtty troll girl waiting to hear the rest of the story. Slowly the apprehension in her stomach turned to a trickle of joy and she continued, “well they, the voices aren’t’ my voice, they don’t sound like me and they didn’t make cat puns when they spoke, and when talk to me they were angry and lustful though; they said things to me that shouldn’t be repeated. They always sound like they’re right behind me, but when I look for the source I can’t find anything. This has been going on for weeks now, you’re the first one I’ve told and I don’t know what to do.” Nepeta said throwing her arms up in frustration; Kanaya noticed and thought that she must have been under a lot of stress the past few weeks. 

“You said that the voices aren’t yours,” Kanaya asked thoughtfully, “does that mean that you may recognize who the voices sound like,” Kanaya said in a voice she hoped sounded neutral, but her suspicions were focusing on one point. Nepeta didn’t say anything, but gave her a small nod of her head, “who is it Nepeta, who do the voices belong to?” 

Nepeta mumbled something undistinguishable and Kanaya was forced to ask again. This time she heard the name loud and clear, “Gamzee.”


	3. Truth and Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nepeta's fear is fully revealed and so are her reasons for coming to Kanaya for aid. Most of this chapter is fluff, but hopefully it will get better soon in the next chapter or two

Between Jade and Green Chapter 3 

Kanaya’s heart felt like it had been clammed in a vice the moment Nepeta said the highblood trolls name. Gamzee, more than anyone on New Earthernia he, the Bard of Rage, was the troll to look out for. For so long they lived in fear of him as he terrorized them and murdered so many of their friends, Nepeta and her moiral Equius, he would have torn apart the Veil in a confrontation with Eridan and Vriska if the newly awakened rainbowdrinker Kanaya hadn’t stopped the three of them. It was a betrayal that still ran deep, before he had stumbled upon the bloody history of his ancestors Gamzee had been a friend, a friend who was high off sopor slime day and night, but a good silly friend. But when the sopor slime ran out Gamzee found his roots as a highblood and took up his role of Subjugglator as his indigo blood demanded. But through his moiral Karkat’s efforts the voices in his head that demanded he cull all the lower blood trolls seemed to of been quieted. If it was Karkat’s efforts that finally did the trick Kanaya didn’t know as Gamzee, like most of them, would later fall in the final battle with Lord English and be revived during the endgame. When the indigo troll was revived along with the others it seemed that they had the old Gamzee back; without the need to force feed him sopor slime, an improbable but welcomed miracle. 

The first sweep they settled in New Earthernia Kanaya watched Gamzee very closely to make sure that there were no dangers of the clown troll going back to his old ways, and for the most part she was satisfied with his behavior. To hear that he may be falling back into bad habits unnerved Kanaya, and she subconsciously put on a new coat of black lipstick, it felt comforting to have her strife specibus in her hands. “Have you told anyone else about this yet, Karkat or Equius?” Kanaya asked trying to keep her voice level.  
“No I couldn’t,” Nepeta said, “Karkitty is Gamzee’s moiral, if he’s noticed something wrong with him he would have said something to the rest of us. What if all the voices turn out to be just something in my head, if I tell the others about them and I’m wrong; at first everyone will panic and when I’m proven wrong I’ll be the puriah. Besides, you know Karkitty will defend Gamzee like a good moiral should,” Nepeta said with a hint of admiration Kanaya noticed. “If I accuse him without proof Karkat will get mad at me,” Nepeta looked so miserable that Kanaya decided to move away from that subject.

“What about Equius, surely he would have wanted to know what you’re going through; as you said Nepeta, that’s what a good Moiral does. He loves you Nepeta, more than he’d be willing to admit probably, even more than his precious hemospectrum. He may not be willing to stand up to Gamzee and use his monstrous strength to keep himself alive; I know he would for your sake.” Kanaya said all this in a soothing tone to try and convince the cattroll to find others to support her.

“No!” Nepeta suddenly shouted, she was louder than she had been during their whole conversation. “Equius can’t know a thing about this conversation and what Gamzee might do. I know he would try to protect me, no matter the cost,” Nepeta said unable to control the tears that fell from her face. “But he can’t face Gamzee, not again, not for me.”  
Kanaya then realized how stupid she had been, Nepeta had watched Gamzee murder Equius easily in the Veil. Then she attacked him in revenge for the death of her moiral right after and was killed herself. She would rather be killed herself than let Equius get hurt defending her. “Okay Nepeta,” Kanaya said as she touched her forehead trying to think of their situation. “I understand that you’re afraid of Gamzee, and that you’re afraid that if you’re wrong that you’ll be ostracized by the others, but may I ask why you came to me then?”

Nepeta looked down at her knees, refusing to meet Kanaya’s eyes, “well there’s the fact that besides Fefuri, you’re the only troll that Gamzees afuraid of,” when she admitted that, Kanaya felt a surprising hurt in her heart, she was used to being used but it still bothered her when even the nice trolls took advantage of her. When Nepeta continued she pushed the hurt away the best she could, “That’s not the only reason why though,” Nepeta swore sincerely as she finally looked at Kanaya, olive tears running down her face. “You’re purreally nice Kanaya, and sweet, and smart, I knew that I could go to you and you wouldn’t judge me or be mean. You’re also a purreally good listener, something that the others take advantage of, I guess so do I, but I know you would care about what had to say instead of turning a deaf ear.”

As much as it broke her heart to see the cattroll crying, Kanaya had to admit that she found it adorable that she still made her cat puns. She shook her head to clear those thoughts from her head though and took a random piece of fabric from one of the many piles in her hive and gave it to Nepeta. After she took the handkerchief she putt an arm around her shoulders and gentle rubbed her to comfort her, “there, there Nepeta, I’m sorry if my questions made you upset.” She wasn’t surprised at her own behavior, Kanaya had done something similar with Vriska and sometimes Karkat quite often, but she was surprised how easy it felt and how for once her charge wasn’t trying to push her away.  
For several minutes the two of them sat like that as Nepeta cried until she was finally able get herself to stop. With a few halfhearted sniffs, Nepeta stopped her tears and gave Kanaya a real smile, “thank you Kanaya, I purreally appureciate you listening to me. You know, I’m not used to being on the receiving end of being comfurrted; usually it’s Equius who needs it not me. It feels kind of weird, but nice at the same time.” She tried to stifle a yawn be was unable to.

“Nepeta, are you alright dear?” Kanaya asked as Nepeta’s eyes started to droop.

“Oh, I’m fine, just kind of sleepy, I woke up early so I could catchat with you, and I guess I didn’t realize I would be this tired.” Nepeta said letting out a full bodied yawn now, making no attempt to cover it up now. 

Kanaya looked out her windows, the sun would be up for several more hours; she was surprised that Nepeta was still awake even now. Kanaya was tired as well; her nap didn’t help nearly as much as it should have, especially when her daymare was added. “I know what you’re talking about, I too feel rather sleepy and I’m used to being up at this hour. You can take a nap here until an hour you are more used too; I’ll send a message to Equius about where you are that way he won’t worry.”

“I appurciate it Kanaya, and so would he, but he’s still gonna worry about me, he’s the best meowral for a reason,” Nepeta said with a big smile on her face.

After sending a message to the blueblood troll Kanaya led Nepeta to her respiteblock so that the cattroll could enjoy her nap. When they reached it Kanaya was rather grateful Nepeta almost asleep, she was self-conscious about her respiteblock. Unfortunately there was an issue that Kanaya had forgotten about, the recuperacoon; Kanaya only had one in her hive. She did have a human mattress in her room though, it was quite comfortable to lie out or sit on, it wasn’t the ideal sleeping arrangement, but as her guest Nepeta should be the one to stay in the recuperacoon, as was the custom. It would also allow Kanaya to sleep without the awkwardness of being next to the cute troll girl. “Here Nepeta, you can have the recuperacoon until nightfall for your nap, I can make do with this fine mattress for my own.”

“Don’t be silly Kanaya, your recuperacoon has more than enough room for the two of us, there’s no point in you sleeping on that mattress of yours when we could share,” Nepeta said pointing at the double recuperacoon. “Besides, from the sound of your daymare earlier today, it sounds like you need the sopor slime more than I do.”

‘Damn it,’ Kanaya thought, ‘that’s right my recuperacoon was built for two just so that when Vriska came over we didn’t have to have arguments over who gets to sleep where.’ “Oh that’s right, how silly of me, I haven’t used both sides for quite a while, the size must have slipped my mind,” Kanaya said her cheeks turning green. And admittedly she was rather wary of her earlier dreams that slipped her mind as she was drawn into real world problems.

“Well then it’s settled then,” Nepeta said taking off her coat and shirt, Kanaya could only watch transfixed by the sight of the green troll’s body that was becoming increasingly uncovered. “I hope you don’t mind, I don’t have anything to change into here, I wasn’t expecting to stay the day?” When Kanaya silently shook her head still mesmerized by Nepeta’s surprisingly mature body clad in underwear. “Well sweet dreams Kanaya,” Nepeta gave her one last grateful hug before stepping into the jade troll’s recuperacoon, and Kanaya slowly followed.

Kanaya took her place in the calming sopor slime next to Nepeta, the amount of room between them was more than enough space for them both to be comfortable, but Kanaya still could feel that Nepeta was so very close to her. She practically willed sleep to take her so that she would stop thinking about the barely clothed sleeping cattroll almost touching, and finally the darkness took them both.


	4. Awake and Explore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Homestuck is not mine by any stretch of the imagination. I hope the few people who read this will enjoy it.

Between Jade and Green Chapter 4

 

Nepeta awoke from her couple hour nap feeling more refreshed than she had in a long time. The conversation with the rainbowdrinker had taken a lot out of the cattroll, but she would admit that it felt good to talk to someone her problems, and Kanaya was a very good listener. She slowly dragged herself out of Kanaya’s recuperacoon carefully as to not disturb the still sleeping girl close to her. Nepeta was glad that in their slumber the two female trolls didn’t engage in any redrom clichés like have their unconscious bodies cuddle together and wake up surprised.

  
‘I am glad aren’t I,’ Nepeta thought to herself as she stared at Kanaya’s still sleeping form in the sopor slime. She looked at Kanaya in her recuperacoon glowing softly like a candle; her light chased away the darkness and wouldn’t let them go past the walls. Nepeta had never thought much femininity herself; she had spent most of her time rolling around and getting dirty, never paying much attention to appearance at all, but when she did compare herself to Kanaya she knew she fell short by far. There was no denying that the rainbowdrinker was lovely; her tall slim form with a generous hint of feminine curve draped in fashionable wear of her own design should be enough for almost any troll. ‘Should be,’ Nepeta thought to herself bitterly thinking of Vriska and the way Kanaya confessed how much the bluebloods actions still hurt her.  


Nepeta knew what it was like to be hurt by someone who couldn’t feel the same way that you did for them, but at least Karkitty didn’t break her heart and then force her to see what she had lost. He had never returned her feelings for him; no matter how much it hurt now to admit, Nepeta knew his bright red blood pumping heart had always belonged to Terezi. Of course he had to pick her, he couldn’t have picked Vriska or Eridan, someone she might be able to despise if she really put effort into it, but no, he had to pick one of her best friends. Truly, for a hardcore shipper, nothing hurt as much as losing a redrom contest. She could try and comfort herself by saying that Karkat made a tough choice between the two of them. But in her more honest hours alone she would admit that Karkat had never looked at her in that way, and even if he hadn’t picked Terezi, Nepeta knew she was low on the list of his possible matesprits.

  
But Nepeta shook her head to try and clear her thoughts; self-pity was not the reason why she came here to see Kanaya. She hadn’t expected to see that much of Vriska though when she planned to talk to Kanaya today. She was angry at Vriska, perhaps more than she was entitled to, but she couldn’t help but feel outraged in Kanaya’s place. Vriska had no right to act the way she did after ending her matespritship with Kanaya; it was cruel and unneeded even if she didn’t do what she did to be so. Vriska should have been grateful that Kanaya didn’t feel the same way Nepeta felt after just hearing about the blueblood’s actions. Kanaya may have been the most untrollish troll that Nepeta had ever met, but Nepeta had heard stories about how the rainbowdrinker had defeated the god tiered thief, a white science wielding prince, and their insane indigo bard after her revival without any effort. If only half of the story was true, than Nepeta knew that if Kanaya wanted to she could put that huge bitch in her place, unfortunately it wasn’t in the jadeblood’s nature to do so, so Vriska remained the same since the game. ‘If I had a matesprit like Kanaya,’ Nepeta began thinking to herself before shaking her head to dismiss those thoughts.

 

Nepeta took a few minutes to inspect her slime covered body; itwas a good thing that she took off her clothes before jumping into the slime or they would be as messy as she was. Kanaya surely wouldn’t mind if Nepeta quickly used her ablution trap just to clean off, she thought as she moved to the bathroom. The washroom was far different from Nepeta’s, it was organized and clean; while Nepeta’s wasn’t always a mess, she never saw the point in constantly cleaning every surface if she was going to just end up messing it up again. But this wasn’t her bathroom, so Nepeta took special care to make sure no slime dripped on any of Kanaya’s floor or bathmats. It was a slow painstaking process, but eventually Nepeta got to the ablution trap without a single drop of slime falling on the floor. With a little pang of pride Nepeta jumped into the tub of the trap and let the water pour on to her and lost herself in her own thoughts.

  
After what felt like forever Nepeta heard a knock at the door of the bathroom, “Nepeta, take your time, but I have a towel for you when you are done. I’m going to leave it here when you’re ready to get out, your clothes are here to,” Kanaya’s voice came from the other side of the door. She opened it and put a fluffy green towel and Nepeta’s discarded clothes in a neat pile on a surface near the door.

  
‘I guess we’re going to avoid all of the redrom clichés today,’ Nepeta thought to herself a bit amused and surprisingly disappointed. She stepped out of the ablution trap and started to dry herself off with the towel; it was surprisingly fluffy and comfortable, even more than it looked.

  
“Nepeta,” Kanaya called through the door, “are you alright? I haven’t heard the water running for several minutes; I just wanted to check to make sure you are alright in there.” She was worried when Nepeta didn’t answer her and contemplated going in and checking on the cattroll; she might have injured herself. ‘But she may be unclothed, I cannot simply barge in on her,’ Kanaya debated with herself with a green blush on her face.

  
Before she could decide to intrude into the bathroom Nepeta stepped out covered in only a towel, she too was blushing, but hers seemed to be more due to embarrassment than a dirty mind like Kanaya. “Sorry for taking so long,” Nepeta said scratching the back of her head, “I was getting out when you brought my clothes in with the towel, but when I saw how soft and fluffy it was I got distracted.”

  
Nepeta was not the only one distracted at the time as Kanaya observed her guest’s still moist body, naked if not for a traitorous towel. Her acid sacs weren’t incredibly huge, but Kanaya had never thought of the greenblood as a developed troll until then, but apparently her clothes did a good job covering up her curves. “Yes, very soft,” Kanaya said without thinking. She mentally slapped herself, stop it Kanaya, Nepeta is a guest, not a piece of meat to ogle, she scolded herself. “I mean, I am glad you found the towel so acceptable, to be honest when I made them I was not sure if they were both efficient enough to absorb water while still being comfortable to the user. Before you, I have not had anyone use the towels except Vriska and her input was not very helpful in making them better, just pointing out their flaws,” she ended her rambling on a sad note.

  
Nepeta sensed this and again felt a surge of anger at the spidertroll, but she bit back her venomous words; that wasn’t what Kanaya needed now. “Well I think it is purrrfect Kanaya,” Nepeta said trying to give the rainbowdrinker her best cat smile. “So soft and fluffy it feels so nice on my skin, see,” Nepeta bounced over to her friend and grabbed Kanaya’s wrist. She forced the jadeblood to touch the towel where it covered up her hip and Kanaya felt her eyes grow wide.

  
Quickly Kanaya took her hand back and wretched her hand away as if Nepeta’s body was on fire, “yes very soft Nepeta, I can see that. Well if you are done with your cleansing I will bath myself and give you privacy so you can change.” Without waiting to hear Nepeta’s answer she took her own towel into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

  
Nepeta stood in the doorway of Kanaya’s bathroom in her towel for a moment with a sly grin on her face. Perhaps she had taken the joke a little too far, but it was so amusing to see Kanaya so flustered. Besides, it was nice to be looked at like that; most of the others would call her cute or cool, but no one ever looked at her like she was pretty or attractive like Kanaya just did. She could get used to this treatment; she thought until she scolded herself, this was exactly the thing that she was angry at Vriska over. Repeatedly she struck her temples with balled fists to clear those naughty thoughts from her thinkpan. She knew she shouldn’t be mean to Kanaya, not after she had been so nice to her and agreed to help her out, but something about the rainbowdrinker brought out the more mischievous parts of her. Perhaps it was that even though Kanaya acted so graceful and was like a mother to all of their friends, in her own way the jadeblood was even more innocent than Nepeta herself; it made Nepeta feel conflicted, wanting to protect and bully her at the same time. “Stop it, stop it, stop it,” Nepeta yelled at herself and started to hit herself harder to make the thoughts go away.

  
“Ummm Nepeta,” Kanaya’s voice came from the other side of the bathroom door, “this is sort of embarrassing, but it turns out I forgot to bring a change of clothes with me, could you possibly fetch me an outfit please?” Kanaya said, and Nepeta could almost feel her flushed face from the other side of the door.  
“Certainly Kanaya, but um where are your clothes?” Nepeta asked grateful for something to do.

  
“My dresses should be in the closet, there should be an emerald one that I was thinking about wearing if you wouldn’t mind. And my unmentionables should be in the top drawer of my dresser. Thank you Nepeta.” Kanaya said, most trolls would say it sarcastically, but Kanaya was definitely sincere, Nepeta could tell.

  
Nepeta opened the closet door carefully, she didn’t expect to be attacked or anything, but if Kanaya’s closet was anything like the rest of her hive, full of different interesting fabrics, than she would have to steel herself to make sure she didn’t play with them all night. It turned out that she didn’t have to be so cautious Kanaya’s closet was very neat and organized; all her dresses were all hung up with care as to not wrinkle them. No fabrics were so carelessly dangled temptingly for any stray passing cats to be seduced by. She pulled a green dress that Kanaya might have been talking about from the closet. ‘Emerald was a special name for the color green right?’ She asked to herself. Equius might have known the difference with his obsession with colors; he might even have been ashamed that Nepeta didn’t know the difference, but Nepeta had never been that interested in different color shades. But the dress was pretty and sort of looked like Kanaya’s text; Kanaya would look great in it like she did in everything so Nepeta decided it was good enough. She carefully took the dress and draped it over a chair as she moved to Kanaya’s dresser; she may not have cared about wrinkles, but Kanaya did so that was reason enough to be careful.

  
She opened up the drawer without caring, but she was relatively surprised when she found Kanaya’s unmentionables. She had quite a few pairs actually, but mostly they were either white or jade green like always; most of them were plain, the sort that were just worn for function, but some were quite sexy. She couldn’t even image someone like Vriska wearing them much less Kanaya, but here they were right in her drawer, neatly organized like everything else. Nepeta decided to grab a plain pair of bra and panties, she didn’t want to make Kanaya uncomfortable, she was someone who wanted to keep such things private. Even though it was the plain one, Nepeta couldn’t help at stare at Kanaya’s bra surprised and a bit envious; her chest wasn’t huge like Feferi or Aradia, but they were much bigger than hers.

  
“Here Kanaya,” Nepeta said as she passed the clothes through an opening in the door making sure she didn’t see anything. And she quickly got dressed in her own, by now she was completely dry and didn’t want to make up excuses to why she was still dressed only in her towel.

  
After a few minutes Kanaya stepped out of the bathroom wearing her pretty dress like she had been born to, but she did look a little uncomfortable. “Normally, I would enjoy wearing a shirt with one of my skirts, but I sort of wanted something a bit more festive. I thought that it might shake me out of my mood, but I fear I only succeeded in making myself look ridiculous.” She had worn dresses like this one before, before the game they had been her standard outfit, but the last time she had worn a dress was the red one she wore when everything had fallen apart. This would be the first time that she wore a real dress since and she was a bit self-conscious; she loved the color and the way the light material felt against her skin, but she wasn’t sure if she was good enough for the dress.

  
But all her doubts were chased away when Nepeta spoke, “wanting to feel festive is good, it means you’re taking a step in the right direction. Besides, you look beautifur, perhaps even purrfect,” Nepeta beamed, the way that she complimented Kanaya sounded so sweet and sincere, so unlike the ones she received from a certain blueblood, Kanaya couldn’t help but smile.

  
“Well than I suppose I will keep it on than since it meets your approval,” Kanaya said trying to be nonchalant but she was really happy at the cattroll’s compliment.  
“Well than since we’re both bathed and dressed, let’s go out for a night on the town,” Nepeta said pulling Kanaya from her respiteblock to the front door with enthusiasm. Kanaya could have easily pulled her back, but she didn’t want to stifle Nepeta’s fun, and she was planning on going out and mingling anyway. So with a smile on her face as well, Kanaya allowed Nepeta to drag her into town wondering what the night would bring.


	5. Rumors and Misunderstandings (Part 1 of the night after reactions)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cat is out of the bag now, but luckily or unlikely it's not the right cat, though i don't think any cat would enjoy being in a bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the longest chapter so far i believe and it also took the longest. I just want to apologies for the out of characterness of certain characters. Most specifically Sollux, he is supposed to be based off the calmer Sollux after he lost his eyes rather than the Sollux from their session and before the Veil went to shit.

Between Jade and Green Chapter 5

            Kanaya let out several giggles as Nepeta dragged her all the way through town like an excited grub, but she was still having a better time than she had in a while.  They arrived at the local watering hole for the heroes of SGRUB and SBURB called the Drowsy Hoof beast, Jade and Equius won the contest to name it.  Normally the heroes would meet up there before nightfall every night and hang out for an hour or two together before separating into smaller groups and going about their business.  The sun was about to set so the two of them were the last to arrive, but normally the atmosphere of the tavern was so loud that no one would notice the late trolls sneaking in.  Or at least they shouldn’t have, but for some reason every head turned to look at the two of them as they entered the tavern.   The tavern was dead quiet as every troll and human looked at the two greenish blooded trolls who entered together.  Different people wore different expressions, some looked happy, others looked like they were upset, but everyone looked at the two new arrivals like they were the most interesting thing in any universe.

 

            Before Kanaya or Nepeta could ask what was happening Feferi burst from the crowd squealing and flung her arms around the two of them.  “Oh you guys, we’re so glubbing happy for you,” Feferi screeched sincerely, even though her words didn’t mirror the way some of those in the crowd felt.

 

            Kanaya didn’t know how to react to the Empress’ embrace, but that may have been due to her ribs shattering from the highblood’s bone crushing hug.  Nepeta handled the situation a bit better by gratefully and carefully pulling Feferi’s hands from around both of them. “Well, I’m glad that you’re glad Fefurry, but why are you happy for us?” she asked confused.

 

            “Well Vriska came in earlier in a huff and started to drink a lot; even more than she did at the last holiday party we had.  Well after tossing back a few she told to tell everyone who would listen that the two of you have gotten together.  Well she used much more profane words like filling… things, but I don’t really want to repeat those.  So after the shock died down the news spread like a wildfire, and I wanted to be the first to codgratulate you two.” Feferi’s voice was still as perky as always as she let all it all spill out.

 

            For a moment Nepeta and Kanaya were struck dumb and exchanged quick wordless looks at each other, as if trying to process what the Tyranian blood had just said.  “Wait a second, we’re not together in any way,” Kanaya tried to say, but it came out to unintelligible stutters and coughs.

 

            “What she said,” Nepeta was able to communicate a bit clearer, “the two of us aren’t together; I mean we are friends and Kanaya is helping me with a purroblem, but we aren’t together romantically or anything like that.”

 

            Feferi and everyone else in the tavern looked confused, “but Vriska said-,” Feferi started with a questioning look.

 

            “Don’t bother them Giggly Gills, they want to try out a secret relationship, but I kind of ruined it with my big gossipy mouth.  Let them pretend that we don’t know that they are the deepest red of flushed.” Vriska said from across the room giving the two embarrassed trolls a smug grin. 

 

            If they weren’t in public Kanaya would have said some choice words to Vriska over her lie, but unfortunately they were so she had to settle for Feferi giving the spidertroll a frown.  “You didn’t tell us that Vriska, if they wanted to try and keep it a secret than it’s there business.”  She turned to Nepeta and Kanaya again, “don’t worry, pretend as long as the two of you want, we’ll play along,” she said before going back into the mess of trolls and humans who decided that they embarrassed the new lovers enough.

 

            The two of them looked at each other and then at the rest of those present in the tavern, they were trying hard to mingle between themselves, but their eyes always strayed to the two green blooded trolls. The two of them knew they were being scrutinized, “why don’t we go our separate ways for now,” Kanaya suggested, “We can meet up and discuss what to do next when we all go our own ways.”

 

            “Good idea Kanaya,” Nepeta said as she broke off into the crowd of their friends, but not before looking back and giving Kanaya a smile, one that was different from her normal Cheshire grin.  Kanaya felt her cheeks warm a bit before watching the cattroll disappear to mingle.

 

              Kanaya went another way than Nepeta, instead of going to where the full tables laid she moved to the bar where her original human friends sat.  “So, Nepeta,” her moiral asked with a smug look on her normally perceptive face, “I didn’t think that you had it in you Kanaya.  How did the two of you get together, did she flash you a bit of tail?” Rose tried to joke, rather feebly Kanaya thought but it got under her skin nonetheless.

 

             “That is a lie concocted by Vriska and you know it Rose,” Kanaya said her face now flushed with embarrassment.

 

             “Calm down Kanaya, I’m just kidding.  I know that you and Nepeta aren’t actually together.  If you did had feelings for her than you would have been at my home the past few weeks; going on and on about her and all of Nepeta’s good qualities,” Rose said with false smugness.  Kanaya knew the blonde human was kidding and trying to get on her nerves, but it was working regardless.

 

            “Give me a chance to sit down before making fun at my expense please.  Who was the donor today by the way,” Kanaya asked grabbing the pouch of blood that the turtle bartender placed before her with a bow.  The trolls and humans agreed to supply Kanaya a pack of blood a day through their own lifeblood, the other two for the rest of her meals would be given by the surviving consorts who were all perfectly happy to give.  She didn’t actually need blood all the time now that they weren’t constantly in danger and had to remain awake, but she did anyway since the consorts seemed almost happier to give the rainbowdrinker blood than she was to drink it.  This night the blood pack was red, a bright cherry red that ruled out Aradia and meant that it could only be Karkat or one out of seven of the eight humans; Jade’s blood was drinkable and delicious but since this particular bag didn’t give off green sparks she could be ruled out.

 

            Kanaya could have learned the identity of the donor with a simple taste, or even a slight whiff of the bag’s contents, but she preferred to ask before she started her meal.  She looked up at her human friends, “you don’t have to answer, I can tell by the corners of Dave’s mouth twitching, almost begging to turn to a shit eating grin, that today’s meal is courtesy of your mother/daughter,” she said to her moiral with a sigh.  The worst two people in the blood donation rotation were Gamzee and Roxy, relatively for the same reason.  When Kanaya drank their blood that was full of toxins she tended to get a little wild; the last time she partook in the highblood’s blood she wound up flashing all of their friends, in both the modern and the literal sense.  The last time she had the human lush’s blood was back when she was still a couple with Vriska; she couldn’t walk to her hive by herself and needed her matesprit’s help.  Though she didn’t remember most of the night or day that followed she was aware that Vriska couldn’t walk right for a week and she would blush completely blue whenever Kanaya was around.  That was a good memory even if it hadn’t lasted that long, it was rare for Kanaya to make Vriska the flustered partner in their relationship.

 

              Kanaya knew she could have just told the bartender to toss it out; her friend’s blood was more of a luxury than a necessity.  In truth Kanaya didn’t even need any blood every night; human, troll, or other, but it was good to have as it offered her strength that would make her almost Equius’ equal in raw strength.  Besides, the consorts were almost as grateful to give their blood to the Slyph of Space as she was to drink it, so she drank their blood with thanks.  She could have asked for a cup of salamander or crocodile instead of Roxy’s blood, but Kanaya felt that she could use something stronger than the regular fair if she was to survive this night without snapping someone in half.  So she gave thanks to the bartender who blushed at the heroes’ kind words and ripped off the top of the plastic bag and poured the contents into a mug of her own.  She made sure to try and keep herself in control so she didn’t devour the contents of the mug in a single gulp; she wanted to be relaxed not out of control.  As the bright red ambrosia touched her tongue Kanaya felt as if her body was supercharged after a single sip, but she forced herself to put the mug on the counter so she could converse without feeling the tug of the blood’s temptation.’

 

           “Oh come on Kanaya, take a man’s sip,” Dave complained without sounding whiny.  After spending so many sweeps with only whiny trolls who bitched about their problems to her Dave’s ability to complain without sounding like he was complaining astounded her.  Kanaya almost wished that he would try and teach his ‘mad skills,’ to some of the others. 

 

         “I am sorry to disappoint you, but while I am willing to drink the tainted blood of your mother David, I have learned my lesson from before.  I am sorry to disappoint you, you ass.” Kanaya responded with a bit of extra sass.

 

           However Dave didn’t seem to take offense to it like some would, in fact he seemed down right happy that the jadeblood was giving as good as she got.  “No offense meant Kanaya, I just thought that you could use a bit more of my sort of mom’s, more alcohol than blood, blood for courage or something, seeing as you are in a room full of trolls who are acting like a bunch of gossipy housewives at a book club where no one actually has any interest in reading.  Everyone here wants to know if you made that catgirl into a catwoman today,” Dave said in his same unreadable voice as he cobbled together his metaphor, but his words made Kanaya cough and blush anyway.  “And by the way, when I say everyone I mean everyone.  Don’t let these punks fool you,” he said pointing to his human friends and the Alpha session humans as well who were sitting at the other end of the tavern, “they are just as interested if you are knocking booties with Nepeta as any troll.”

 

           “Dave,” Jade whined adorably as she punched her matesprit, or boyfriend as humans called them, in his shoulder. “Speak for yourself if you want, but don’t drag the rest of us into it.”

 

            Dave rubbed his shoulder, “oh so you all are going to toss me under the bus with my big fat perverted dick hard and saluting a pair of les trolls as it runs over me.  If I may recall, we all were having a polite discussion of our two good troll friends bumping and grinding all day long.  And if I may reiterate some of our discussion.” Dave said as he actually pulled a pad of paper and a pen from his pocket and began to read from it, “I said that I was surprised that Kanaya was going for Nepeta of all people because of her lack of the tit factor.  Then again you’ve also gone after Serket and Lalonde, both who aren’t exactly champions of the boob ring so I guess it fits.   When I pointed this out however, Jade, my dearest Dog-tiered love, said and I quote, ‘well just because Nepeta doesn’t have the biggest breasts on the planet doesn’t mean she isn’t very attractive, even if she is more cute than just pretty.  Besides, she easily has the nicest ass of any troll on the planet,’ end quote.” Dave said putting the pen and pad back into his pocket, somehow looking smug even though his glasses blocked his eyes.  “And that’s not even what Egderp and Lalonde said, but I will save that in case someone else wants to accuse the main man of being the only one who fantasizes about lesbian alien sex.”

 

            When he was finished Dave was the only one of their little circle not blushing.  Kanaya took a healthier gulp of her beverage to keep her from sputtering, “For the record, if you are still recording this, nothing happened, Nepeta and I are not in a relationship of any kind except for being friends.”

 

            “Well isn’t that how all lesbians get you, first they complement you on your dress or shoes or some of that shit and then worm their way closer and closer to you.  Then after a month or so, bam, they are already taking over all the beds of the fine ladies on the planet leaving none left for the rest of us.” Dave said completely serious.  “You can have every woman on this planet, troll, human, or other, except this one,” Dave said pulling Jade close to him, “she’s mine.”

 

             Rose walked up to her brother and slapped him across the back of the head, he didn’t flinch.  When she saw this outcome she calmly walked back to her boyfriend and whispered into John’s ear; without a word he walked up to his best friend and slapped him in the back of his head and this time which caused him to lurch forward.  “Ow Lalonde, that hurt,” he said glaring at his sister and rubbing the tender spot at the back of his head.

 

             “Well you deserved it for teasing Kanaya.  I’m her moiral, I’m allowed to make fun of her when it would help her in the end, you’re not,” Rose said waving her finger at her brother’s nose as he protested.

 

             “Oh don’t worry yourself Rose, I know David didn’t mean what he said, I know he is only teasing, but you know David, I’m not sure if I can follow your rules,” Kanaya said as she sensually moved over to the two godtiered humans; Roxy’s blood was doing its thing and Kanaya was feeling her inhibitions lower ever moment.  “She is quite adorable, and since the rumor is I can’t resist a cute woman in front of me, I don’t want to disappoint,” Kanaya said as she moved to Jade.  She placed one delicate finger under Jade’s chin and moved her other hand to one of her the dogtiered human’s cute ears to give it a squeeze. “As good as my blood is today, it’s missing something, perhaps just one little taste from the source will tell me what it’s missing.” She said as she bared her fangs a bit.

 

            Under the rainbowdrinker’s attention Jade let out a cute nervous whine that made Kanaya smile in her tipsy stupor.  “Alright, alright,” Dave said gently removing Kanaya’s hands from his girlfriend, “you win alright, if you want to compete with me in another game fine, let’s just not make my girlfriend the prize okay.” Dave said pulling a dazed Jade over into his body.

 

            “Oh settle down David I’m only kidding, she is irresistible, but I will respect our friendship and try my best to keep my hands off, I’m chasing after a different adorable prey to hunt this night and perhaps the next few.” Kanaya said as she took another sip of her blood.  She had nothing against Nepeta, in fact she was rather fond of her fellow cat lover, but she was surprised that Kanaya would fall for her so quickly.

 

            “Oh I’m just kidding Rose; it’s my turn to tease the lot of you after all you’ve put me through.  Nepeta simply requested some of my time for the next few weeks and asked my confidence in keeping it a secret from everyone else.  Nothing else especially nothing to do with a relationship between the two of us,” Kanaya said but then looked down into her cup. “But perhaps I may see if anything could be there,” she admitted.  “As you said Jade, Nepeta does have the nicest ass on New Earthernia.” Kanaya said as she tilted her head to remember how nice it had been draped only in a towel. “You know though David, even though Nepeta’s chest isn’t huge compared to some others, like sweet Jade here, she isn’t exactly flat chested.  Besides Nepeta’s body isn’t anything like the last two I chased after.  Those two were so skinny they were practically skeletons, but with Nepeta; she’s skinny, but her body is softer than the other two ever were.” Kanaya said night dreaming about the cattroll’s body as she described it.

 

            “Okay… see right there Kanaya,” Dave said trying to recover from the loss of his cool, “that description was hot.  So I’m going to forgive you for call me David throughout our conversation, as long as you don’t let it happen again.”

 

           “Rose is not too skinny,” John interrupted.  Like a true gentleman he felt that it was his obligation to defend his partner, even if she could easily defend herself.  It wasn’t like it what Kanaya said was true anyway, Rose may be slim, but she definitely wasn’t bony like Kanaya said.

 

           “I will keep that in mind Dave,” Kanaya said, “I will make sure to refer to the name that you would prefer, until you frustrate me.  At that time I will constantly call you embarrassing, if accurate, names and titles for a whole day or perhaps more.  Such as: David, Rose’s brother, Dirk’s little brother, Jade’s boy toy, Terezi’s playmate/partner in crime, etc. all that will demean your individuality and coolness,” Kanaya said arching an eyebrow as if to challenge him to say that she was bluffing.  “And I apologize to you John, I meant no disrespect to you or your lady,” her words could be interpreted as rather sarcastic, but her tone was not, nor was her smile.  As much as she had tried in the past Kanaya couldn’t’ bring herself to hate the goofy human, so easy to pity in a platonic way.

 

            John gave her a nod to show her that he didn’t take any offense to her slight against Rose if Rose herself didn’t.  Dave just put his hands up to show he wasn’t going to rise to her bait, and they all let out a laugh to show there were no hard feelings.  However, Kanaya decided it was time to at least attempt to mingle with her fellow trolls; there was no point in putting it off.  She excused herself and went to the opposite wall of the bar and surveyed the others present at the bar; she saw Sollux sitting alone and decided to see what was up, as it were. 

 

             “Hey Kan,” he said before she even sat down.  Finishing the game restored his eyes like it had with the other’s permanent injuries, save for Kanaya’s vampirism and Terezi’s blindness, but the lessons on seeing without his eyes that Terezi taught him stayed with him.  He even confined in Kanaya that sometimes it is easier to just get around with his eyes closed.

 

         “Hello Sollux, how are you tonight,” Kanaya said as she sat down beside her friend, proud that she didn’t slur her words this time.

 

           “Better than you if even half of the rumors floating around this dive are true.  You and Nepeta huh?” He asked with a cheeky grin. 

 

          “Not you too Sollux,” Kanaya whined. 

 

         “Hey don’t blame me because of what everyone else is saying,” he said with a slight smile with his eyes still closed and taking a healthy sniff of the tavern air.  “And in my defense, you do smell like Nepeta, sopor slime, and a shower, it could be easily mistaken that the three are intertwined,” he said giving her a cheeky grin while finally opening his eyes.  Kanaya had to admit though she had always thought of their relationship as good friends she was glad that the yellow blood mage was less agitated all the time.

 

           “You of all people know that rumors aren’t always true.  In the veil everyone thought that you were clanking pails with Feferi and wouldn’t stop bugging you about it especially Eridan.  That’s how Feferi was killed if you remember before the session ended,” Kanaya said before she could stop.  She instantly regretted it the moment the words were out of her mouth, “Oh Sollux, I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean to say what I did, it’s just that no one has left me alone since I came in here and I’ve been drinking Roxy’s blood which makes me do and say things I shouldn’t, and-,” she was about to continue her rambles but Sollux held up a hand to silence her.

 

          “It’s okay Kan, I know that you didn’t mean to bring it up alright,” Sollux said, but his voice was quieter than it had been.  “I was just teasing though.  I’m gonna forgive you this time though; I know you’ve had a tough night.  But as a punishment for bringing that day up, I’m taking this away from you,” he said raising his hand and a purple aura wrapped around Kanaya’s goblet of blood.  Kanaya would deny it if asked in the future, but she did paw at the air and mewl a bit when her blood was taken from her.

 

          “I guess that’s fair,” Kanaya said with a pout, and took a sip of fayo instead.

 

         “Honestly, the rumors didn’t really bother me I just knew that they were just people talking and trying to fill in the blanks to fill their own stupid fantasies.  Besides, yellow and Tyrian purple looks surprisingly good together in a bucket,” Sollux said casually.

 

             Kanaya spat out her fayo in a manner similar to a particular an overused gag that for some reason is still funny.  You know the one. With a sputtering cough Kanaya tried to get words out, “what?”

 

         “Yeah, Fef and I lovers for a while even before the rumors started to go. You know the way things were in the game, constant danger, always being alone, never knowing if the next person you met was your friend or your enemy, and she brought me back.  I will admit to you and no one else Kan, even before the game, I kinda had a flush-crush on her and when I met her again after so long… we just clicked,” Sollux said taking another swig of his beverage.  “For some reason she finds my self-loathing sexy, she’s gorgeous and the sexiest thing that’s ever come from the water, you can’t really blame me.” For a moment it took Kanaya to gather herself from Sollux’s story, when he saw the look on her face he observed what he had been drinking that evening, “maybe I’m the one who should cut back a bit.”

 

“That might be best, yes,” Kanaya agreed vigorously, she knew at some level that Sollux and Feferi, as matesprits, were filling buckets regularly, but it was different hearing about it.

 

          “All teasing and embarrassing stories aside Kan, are you and Nepeta… something?” Sollux asked stressing his last word leaving his meaning ambiguous.

 

            For a moment Kanaya thought on the psychic’s question that she had and would be asked multiple times this night she was sure.  “I don’t know,” She told him and honestly she didn’t know.  The two of them had always been good friends if not that close, would attempting to form a relationship possibly hurt the current friendship that they had now.  She had been here before and charged through without seeing the dangers and had been burnt from it, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to risk that with Nepeta.  Besides, forming a relationship hadn’t been the reason for the two of them to spend time together.  Nepeta’s fear of Gamzee was what brought the cattroll to her, not the idea of finding a new flush crush.  If it wasn’t for Vriska no one would have ever put the two of them together in a million sweeps, and they could have passed off as friends helping each other out.  She was beautiful though, Kanaya thought remembering the way she looked in her hive; not cute, or adorable, Nepeta was all those things and more, but standing in Kanaya’s respiteblock illuminated only by Kanaya’s own glow, she was like something from a legend.

 

         Seeing the frustration on his friends face, Sollux decided to take it easy on her, “It’s okay Kan, so you don’t know how you feel right now, that’s cool.  You don’t have to decide right now,” he told her placing his arm around her shoulders. “But Kan, can I offer you some advice?” he asked her and she gave him a sappy little nod, “with those cute ones, you need to watch out for the teeth,” she gave him a confused look, “I’m serious, if Nepeta is anything like Feferi she’s gonna be cute on the outside and in the way she talks, but once you start doing things behind closed doors, she’s gonna turn into a freak,” he gave her a cheeky grin and she hit his gently in the arm as she giggled with him. 

 

          “Thanks Sollux, sincerely, I needed a laugh right now.  But now I think I’m going to try and mingle with the rest,” she said and he gave her a salute with his beverage as she walked away.

 

          A shadow fell over the Kanaya before she could find another troll to talk to, “I apologize for interrupting, but I need to speak to you Miss Maryam,” Equius said as he attempted to whisper and failed.

 


	6. Discussions and Secrets (Part 2 of the night after reactions)

Between Jade and Green Chapter 6

Kanaya would admit that she didn’t know how to feel about the large blueblood troll. When they first were introduced by Vriska the two of them had made polite, if shallow, conversation. Equius was a rather peculiar troll to know, he was one of the few of them who lived by the hemospectrum; because of which he looked at anyone low on the hemospectrum to be scum. However, due to Kanaya’s respected position of being raised by mother grub, Equius showed her the great respect, and the fact that she was almost as well-mannered as him, if for different reasons, made them get along quite well today. 

After their first meeting though Kanaya had decided to dislike the blueblood due to his attitude towards who he viewed as his inferiors. As time passed however, she started to see other sides of the massive troll that took a while to find. It was this side of him, Kanaya suspected, that allowed someone like Nepeta to love him as only a moiral could and someone like Aradia to love him as a matesprit. 

Still, though they were on good terms, Kanaya was nervous to talk to Equius now when rumors of her and Nepeta filling pails together spread around their community. She decided to alleviate his fears once and for all, “Equius, I know you have probably heard some things tonight about a relationship between Nepeta and myself, but I promise you that there is nothing of the romantic nature between Nepeta and myself. Your precious moiral remains as pure tonight as she was the last,” Kanaya said nervously. To be honest she wasn’t sure that she could take the giant troll; yes she was quicker and more skilled of a fighter than he was. Normally she wouldn’t feel so nervous taking on another opponent that was of similar size as Equius, but the blueblood was different than any opponent she had faced. She had faced many opponents that were bigger or stronger than her, but she doubted that she had ever faced something with as much raw strength as Equius. His strength was more of a curse than a blessing; he could barely dress himself in the morning without tearing or breaking something around him. No matter how much faster or more skilled Kanaya knew she was compared to Equius, she didn’t think that she would be untouched in any strife the two of them partook in and with the sweaty blueblood a single touch was all that would be needed.

But to her surprise Equius seemed surprised and rather disappointed at Kanaya’s opening statement. “I am rather disappointed to hear that Miss Maryam, you are one of the few trolls that I would be happy if Nepeta formed a relationship with,” Equius said.

“Really,” his answer certainly came as a shock to Kanaya. Equius was notorious for being hard to please, especially in the searching for a matesprit or kismesis. How could he approve of Kanaya so easily? “Why me?”

Equius looked thoughtful for a moment before answering, “well there are actually a number of reasons why you would be a perfect partner for Nepeta. For one you are incredibly well mannered and rather kind if you are not bothered by me saying so. Another is that I think that if you and Nepeta were together, you would pity her sweetly unlike some in our community would.” He didn’t have to name Vriska when he said this; she knew who he had meant. “And of course while you are lower on the hemospectrum than she is, it is only a small difference, and you are a rare jadeblood in addition, a position of great honor and respect.” 

Equius had to sneak the hemospectrum comment in Kanaya knew, but she didn’t let it bother her, he really was trying to overcome his prejudices dude to his matesprit not only being a rustblood but a divine one at that. Aradia was grateful for his sincere attempt to change for her, but she also enjoyed making him squirm and perhaps was the only one who enjoyed making him sweat. “Hoofever, if you the two of you are not courting each other, than it brings me to why I asked to speak with you, why did she sleep at your hive today? It wouldn’t be the first time she had stayed over at one of her friends for the night, but I don’t believe this was a planned stay and she didn’t inform me that she was staying over at your dwelling. In fact she didn’t even check in with me when I discovered her missing when I woke, if not for Vriska I might still be searching for her.”

Kanaya would have said that Nepeta was over 10 sweeps old, more than enough time to be considered a fully grown woman, but she didn’t. Equius’ tone was practically pleading even though he tried to hide it, Kanaya couldn’t imagine if Rose suddenly went missing without telling her and the two of them weren’t nearly as close as Nepeta and Equius were. She almost wanted to tell him why Nepeta had contacted her, but she swore that she wouldn’t tell anyone, especially Nepeta’s moiral about Gamzee. “Equius,” she began, “I can’t tell you why Nepeta has decided to spend time with me; she made me swear not to tell anyone. However, she may be willing to tell you if you asked her, but I will not betray her confidence,” she said firmly. But when she saw his face fall she almost broke her word right then and there, “but I can promise you that I will keep her safe no matter what comes next, you have my word.” 

“Did she find another moiral, one who could better suit her needs, is that why she came to you? Does she want you to be her new pale friend, or that human Dirk, I thought that we could be platonic friends, but was this his plan all along? I can change please let her know that Kanaya,” Equius was completely pleading now, and for once Kanaya could see why Aradia pitied him so fiercely. 

Kanaya could almost admit that in a moment of weakness and if she had a dozen more goblets full of Roxy’s blood, she wouldn’t have minded a piece of that. Though he would need some more curves and not talk during, but perhaps it could work after a few more years of an empty hive. Perhaps it was a good thing that Sollux cut her off when he did, she thought to herself. She gave her head a quick shake to clear her thoughts from that ridiculous topic, “no Equius, it’s nothing like that, it’s something big, but hopefully it won’t amount to anything.” 

She would have said more but they were interrupted by Vriska going through the glass of the tavern’s front window cursing. She skillfully landed in a three point stance and brought out the Fluorite Octet, “I’m going to skin you for that you cat bitch.”


	7. Bombardments and Annoyances (Part 3 of the night after reactions)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating for a while, I had a hard time writing the latest chapter and even now that it is finished I’m still not sure if it is up to snuff. By the way that isn’t this chapter, I’m not sure if I mentioned this before but I don’t add a new chapter until I finish the next one. This is so that if for some reason I decide to end the story before it’s finished that I can at least leave anyone who actually enjoys this with one last chapter instead of a message saying that I’m giving up.

Between Jade and Green Chapter 7

“Just remember what I said, its valuable knowledge for the future. When you are getting down to funny business give Kanaya a little bit near her special places, it will make her go wild trust me,” Feferi said as Nepeta left the table they were sharing quickly before her face never went back to grey. No matter what Nepeta told her the highblood just didn’t seem to believe that Kanaya and her were just friends and nothing else. 

‘Damn Vriska,’ Nepeta said as she finally got away. It wasn’t like she didn’t enjoy talking to Feferi, but she wished that the sea-dweller would believe her over Vriska. ‘I mean it’s Vriska of all people,’ Nepeta shouted in her mind. Granted there could be worse things to mistaken for than Kanaya’s matesprit; she was very mature, smart, kind, and beautiful. ‘Whoa there Cautious Huntress,’ Nepeta once again said referring to herself in the third person adorably, ‘just because Kanaya is all those things, doesn’t mean we can buy into the rumors that we are clinking pails. She’s helping you out in an important matter neither of you are looking to fill a quadrant; you don’t want to make this uncomfortable for her.’

She eventually made it to a seat at the bar and tried to order the hardest liquor that she thought she could stand, anything to get the image of Sollux and Feferi playing Psiioniic and Condesce while filling pails. Unfortunately for her a single sip made her cough for a good minute and she switched to lusi milk, at least until Eridan came to talk to her. Talk might be a bit of a stretch as he spent a good five minutes asking Nepeta why she would choose Kanaya over him. Their conversation was very one-sided as Nepeta put aside her milk and quickly downed her previous drink just so she didn’t end up screaming at him. She eventually had him go away by telling him that, while Kanaya and herself were not in fact in a relationship, she wasn’t interested him in that way and he left sulking. 

Some of the others came and offered their congratulations to her and Kanaya like Aradia and Tavros. Others like Karkat told her in his owe gruff way to, ‘not fuck it up,’ until Terezi wacked him over the head and made him be more polite. That hurt more than she wished it would have, when the two of them left her arm in arm she watched them go and wished that maybe just he could have pretended to be jealous just a little, or at least not be so okay with their supposed relationship.

Nepeta eyed her now empty glass suspiciously; she wasn’t much of a heavy drinker so she wondered if instead of being an angry or a sloppy drunk she was a polite drunk. Equius and Kanaya would be happy with her if that was true, but she wasn’t so sure if being a polite drunk was actually a thing. “You know, a pretty catgirl such as yourself shouldn’t be drinking alone, if your lesbian vampire partner isn’t going to be join you allow me to be your white knight,” a voice from beside her said. If she didn’t recognize the voice she may have snapped at him, but luckily she saw it was Dirk Strider in all his ironic super cool kid glory and instead of getting angry at him she pounced on him in a hug.  
Nepeta was pretty close to most of the humans, but she was the closest by far to Dirk out of all of them and so was Equius. At first her moiral didn’t approve of their friendship but after the two bonded over their mutual love for hoofbeasts, or what humans called horses, and Dirk showed Equius an old human show called, “My Little Pony,” they became good friends; which meant that Nepeta and Dirk could continue their friendship.

Dirk let himself be pounced on and awesomely fell to the floor with Nepeta on top of him, as only a cool kid could. After a minute they two of them of them returned to their stools as if nothing had happened. “Nepeta, are you prepared,” he asked her in a dead serious voice and held out his hand while holding something. Nepeta just as serious took it solemnly from him and held the object with great reverence. A moment later Nepeta put on the sunglasses and they exchanged a series of cool fistbumps and handshakes until they were eventually back to back and looking swag as hell, “heroes of heart for life,” they said as they fist bumped once again completing their ritual. They broke down laughing after they finished, or at least Nepeta did, Dirk just let out a small coolkid grin. “Solid as always my dearest catgirl, I have taught you well,” he put his hands together and gave her a small bow.

“It was your purrfect teachings my master that lead me down the true path to happiness,” Nepeta said returning a bow of her own.

Dirk let out a laugh and gave Nepeta a pat on the head, “Come on kid, I’ve got a table where we can talk in private,” he said as he led her to a table in the balconies overlooking the main floor of the tavern, away from the crowd. “So what is up with you Nep, there are a lot of rumors going around, but I would like to hear it from you. What is the story between you and Kanaya?” He asked her causally, but sincere. “As one of your older brother figures I have the right to know everyone and anyone who was, is, and could be a part of your love life. It’s a rule,” he declared with absolute finality. 

Nepeta could have argued against his so called rules that she assumed were made by him as he went along, he had brought them up before, but she decided against it. If she argued it could draw a crowd to watch, besides even if she did get him to relent for now, he would just be back later with probably Equius along to interrogate her. “The thing is, Kanaya isn’t part of my love life at all, at least not right now. I need her help for something secret which is why I met her during the day, no one would be around and she’s kind of shy when everyone is around so I didn’t want to overwhelm her when I asked. That’s all,” she declared, she was sick of everyone thinking that they had a right to butt into her life.

Dirk observed her for a moment through his shaded eyes as if deciding to believe her. “You’re telling the truth, I can tell that much you and Kanaya aren’t girlfriends or whatever you aliens call it. But I can also tell that you aren’t telling me the whole truth. Do you want your relationship with her to be something more?”

That wasn’t what Nepeta expected to hear from him and not something she had thought of that much intently. She had come to Kanaya this morning with the intent to get the rainbowdrinker’s help with Gamzee; she hadn’t expected all of this to come out of it. Would it really be that bad to have the beautiful jadeblood as a matesprit? “No, it wouldn’t,” Nepeta said as she imagined what it would be like to have Kanaya’s arms wrapped around her like something from a redrom.

“Sorry I didn’t catch that,” Dirk said waking her from her fantasy and making her blush, “you didn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t know,” Nepeta whined. She never whined when talking to Dirk, it was a tone usually saved for when she had Equius teetering on the edge of a big decision that went against his beliefs, but this situation seemed appropriate. “I need her help with something which is why I got up during the day to talk to her. It’s something that’s a secret so we went to her hive to discuss in private and Vriska was there. She left when she saw that I was with Kanaya, but she was obviously jealous so she spread this rumor about us and now everyone thinks we’re together,” she laid out her day before him and collapsed her head in her hands. “I wouldn’t be opposed to a relationship with Kanaya maybe, but it wasn’t what I wanted and I don’t think it’s what she wants either. Maybe one day,” Nepeta started to play with her tail, as she usually did when she was nervous, “but not like this, not because everyone’s mistaken that we’re together,” she said finally.

Dirk listened to what she said and took a sip of what he was drinking. “I think that, that is a very mature and logical way to look at this whole situation,” he told her. “But on the other hand I think that it is also a load of bullshit.” When he saw her about to protest he raised a palm to silence her, “I’m not telling you that you’re wrong or anything like that and I’m not telling you to jump Kanaya’s lesbian vampire troll bones, but I’m just saying that looking at your situation isn’t the way you normally look at things and you are out of your depth. Just because your mind is telling that this is the best way to do things doesn’t mean that it’s going to work out that way. I know you don’t want to rush into a relationship because you’ve been forced into it, but just don’t forget about the heart either okay, promise me that,” he told her. But what he said made her all the more confused, “hey, my glass is empty and so is yours, so why don’t I run to the bar and right that wrong while you get your head together,” he told her as he collected both their glasses and made his way to the bar.

‘Gog damn my stupid feelings, stupid other hero of heart saying that I should follow mine, urgh,’ Nepeta said, but fortunately, or unfortunately as it were, she was not alone with her thoughts for long.

“Hey there kitty sis,” Gamzee said slamming a fayo down in front of her as he took Dirk’s empty seat. “I heard that you and rainbowdrinker sis started hooking up, I just wanted to raise a toast to congratulate the two of you motherfucking crazy kids.”

“Um, thanks Gamzee,” Nepeta said gingerly picking up the bottle of soda. She didn’t know what to do, since they settled on New Earthernia she had kept her distance around the juggulo even if he seemed to be back to his old ways before the game and Gamzee seemed to respect that. They had minimal contact until recently; whenever Gamzee saw her passing by in the street he would give her a wave, but normally not anything more. But now even thought that hadn’t changed whenever she passed him she would hear a whisper in her ear whispering all sorts of perverse mix red sex talk and other threatening black dialogue. She really wanted to just pour the fayo on the floor and find Kanaya right away if only to get away from the clown, but Kanaya was nowhere to be seen and no one who could help her was close enough to see she could be in trouble. She apathetically clinked her bottle with Gamzee’s own and took a swig if only to keep him from getting mad at her.

“That Rainbowdrinker bitch isn’t going to stop me you know,” Gamzee’s loud insane voice rang out, seemingly coming from nowhere and Nepeta immediately stopped drinking and looked at Gamzee with wide eyes. But he was still drinking his fayo with his mouth over the brim; he couldn’t have been the one to say anything and no one else seemed to notice. 

‘Could it all be in my head,’ Nepeta asked herself with her hands shaking. She didn’t want to believe it but now it seemed possible.

“Oh the things I’m going to do to you kitty, oh and now since you’ve brought another player into our tempest romance, I’m going to make her watch,” this time it was his quieter voice that spoke. It was softer and smoother than his loud one, but that made it worse knowing that it was still just as sadistic, but better at hiding it.

“Well it was fun slamming down some motherfucking fayo with you kitty sis, but now I got to find Tav and mingle a bit. See ya,” Gamzee said retreating down the stairs.  
When she knew she was alone Nepeta started to hyperventilate wondering if Gamzee’s crazy voice was in her head or not. Unfortunately once again she didn’t have the time to contemplate since she was once again interrupted by an annoying person. “Heeeeeeeey there Nepeta,” a familiar voice that Nepeta knew and was very annoyed at at the moment.

“No!” Nepeta shouted at Vriska before she could say anything, “I need about five minutes to myself to sort out my freaking problems today and I don’t need you to get on my case now too,” she roared.

“I’m sorry my dear Nepeta, but I thought that we would have something’s to discuss,” Vriska said smiling. Most likely she just wanted an excuse to show Nepeta her fangs up close. 

Such tactics wouldn’t work, Nepeta had sharper fangs and had killed things with fangs the size of her with just her claws before and during the game, a blueblood’s attempt to show offer her purely aesthetic fangs didn’t faze her. “What do you want Whiska,” Nepeta asked coldly. 

“That’s cute, even when you’re angry with me and want to get straight to the point you keep up the kitty puns, I can respect that,” Vriska said stirring her drink a bit. “Well if you must know, I just wanted to be clear about what your intentions are with Kanaya. The two of you are the talk of the town and I wanted to hear about it with my own two ears,” Vriska said her smile never left her face, but it didn’t reach her eyes either.

“there’s nothing going on between us romantically, Kanaya is just helping me with a problem I have that’s all,” Nepeta said. “You know that already though, since you’re the one who started the rumor.”

“All I know is that I was feeling a bit frisky this morning and I went over to Kanaya who’s always up for a good quick lay even though she’s my ex. I went to her hive to get ready and she isn’t there so I wait. A few hours later she comes back after keeping me waiting for so long with you in tow. What is a girl to think?” Vriska asked. “Well if I was mistaken I apologize, tomorrow if the whole thing hasn’t blown over I’ll set things right. It should stop being funny by then. Where is Kanaya anyway, if the two of you aren’t knocking boots than you shouldn’t mind if we go home together right,” Vriska said as she looked out over the floor to try and find Kanaya.

“You shouldn’t do this you know,” Nepeta said in a quiet voice.

“Do what,” Vriska asked annoyed turning back to Nepeta.

“You know exactly what, leading Kanaya on like this,” Nepeta said angrily. “She is so incredibly flushed for you, but you don’t even care how much you’re hurting her every time you reduce her importance to you to just a booty call.”

“She broke up with me kitty cat, not the other way around. We would still be together if it was up to me, so why don’t you keep your nose out of our business since you’ve admitted there’s nothing going on between the two of you quadrant wise,” Vriska said with her anger bleeding through into her voice.

“And that makes it okay to hurt her every time you use her for sex,” Nepeta asked hissing.

“Kanaya’s a big girl, a very big girl," Vriska said miming larger breasts on her own chest. "She can take care of herself and make her own decisions. If she didn’t want my sexy body she could have just said no, but she wanted it just as much as I did, trust me she enjoyed it as much as much as I did too.”

“That’s not the point Vriska, Kanaya doesn’t need to get laid; she needs a matesprit to care for her, not just use her.”

Vriska just stared at Nepeta with hate in her eyes for a moment, who did this little cat bitch think she was talking to? Vriska was a god, a champion flarp player, a higher blood, and one of the most powerful psychics they had, who was Nepeta to say that she was in the wrong? “You know it’s almost a shame that the two of you aren’t together Nepeta. I want to show you just how wrong you are. All it would take is a crooked finger asking Kanaya to come hither and she would be mine no matter how you treat her. You know Terezi stole someone you were flushed for right, you didn’t have much of a chance with him either, but I wondered how easy it was for her to do so. Maybe I should see what all the fuss is about, I bet I could steal one from you in half the time,” Vriska said and Nepeta lost it. She punched the blueblood in the face and sent her staggering. “Oh, so that’s how you want to play it huh, kitty bitch?” Vriska said wiping the blood pooling around the corner of her mouth. “Well I can play that game too,” she swung her own fists at the green blood’s face but Nepeta was able to dodge it while flipping and was far away from Vriska now in a fighting crouch.

The two looked at each other with murder in their eyes and simultaneously yell, “Strife!” Neither of them pulled out a weapon, they wanted to hurt each other, but bringing out their strongest weapons the whole bar would be destroyed. It wasn’t much of a fight at first though, Nepeta was used to fighting with her hands and was much quicker than Vriska who was taller and probably stronger but couldn’t seem to get a hit in. Frustrated Vriska threw a strong punch at Nepeta who dodged it and used the psychic’s force against her and tossed her. It was only meant to toss her to the floor, but unfortunately she wasn’t tossed to the ground, but rather off the balcony through the window of the bar. 

“Shit,” was all Nepeta said as all eyes turned to look up her, that wouldn’t be good for the rumors she though as she jumped down to the main floor easily. She didn’t actually want to hurt Vriska, no matter how angry she was at her. 

But the godtiered troll shouldn’t be hurt by something like that, “I’m going to skin you for that you cat bitch,” came from outside and Nepeta knew that their fight wasn’t over.


	8. Battles and Mediations (Part 4 of the night after reactions)

Between Jade and Green Chapter 8

Nepeta gracefully raced in leaps and bounds between her friends on the main floor of the tavern towards the window that she threw Vriska out of. Vriska probably couldn’t of picked a better time to do this; Nepeta had a lot on her plate right now, between Kanaya and their maybe relationship, Gamzee, and if she was going insane. But something like this, this was easy compared to all of that garbage. Perhaps Vriska didn’t deserve to get the stuffing kicked out of her for what she said about Kanaya and herself, but she’d be damned if she let that spiderbitch talk that way about someone she claimed to care about and someone Nepeta did care about. They wouldn’t kill each other, Nepeta knew that, but right now she tried to forget that part and focus on the sweet simple asskicking. 

Outside however, Kanaya wasn’t sure if she should be startled by Vriska being tossed through the tavern’s window, or exasperated by it. It was a common theme of the night, almost a nightly occurrence, but only slightly less frequent than that. For all of her amazing powers and cunning mind, Vriska didn’t seem to grasp the concept that most people in their rather large friendship group don’t enjoy being around her normally, and they have no patients for when she intentionally tries to infuriate one of them. However being a god, the frequent defenestration’s does little to harm her or her attitude.

“Equius,” the rainbowdrinker announced as polite, but as firm as she could, “it appears that Vriska and your moiral are about to kill each other. As the villages’ two-wheeled auspicating device it is my job to intervene, would you be so kind to lend me a hang?” Kanaya asked but didn’t really give him time to accept or decline. She decided that perhaps to spice things up she would stop Nepeta from attacking and leaves the two bluebloods to each other; perhaps it was the human blood stewed in alcohol, perhaps Kanaya was just feeling a bit kinky in her auspicating, she just wanted to try something new. 

So when Nepeta finished her final bounce and went for the pounce, Kanaya simply stepped in front of her. Normally Nepeta was an expert at pouncing people no matter the height of her leap, but she didn’t expect a glowing rainbowdrinker to step in front of her immediately changing her objective from hurting Vriska to landing in Kanaya’s arms. …Because it would keep her safe, not because she wanted to know what it would be like to be held in Kanaya’s strong yet supple arms, which would be ridiculous. So instead of her war face on, Nepeta had the common face that her friends would have when they do something or taste something stupid, you know the one.

So instead of pouncing on her and wounding her, Nepeta dropped into Kanaya’s outstretched arms like a kitten falling from a tree. Behind the two of them Equius simply put his hand on Vriska’s shoulder and the two of them knew that if she resisted now Equius would probably break it by accident. For a moment the two greenish trolls blushed at each other and Nepeta, though she tried to resist couldn’t help but swoon over Kanaya at that moment, but after a few seconds Kanaya placed her on her own feet and signaled Equius to bring Vriska over.

In her sternest voice Kanaya demanded to know, “what is going on here?”

The two trolls were used to being yelled at or at least sternly talking to, but they both had the decency to be ashamed under Kanaya’s gaze. But when she opened her mouth to ask again the floodgates opened and nothing could stop the two troll girls from blaming each other. Eventually Kanaya just gave up trying to logically discover what had happened from the two and held up her hand to silence them. “Sollux,” she loudly called into the crowd of watchers, “give me my drink or these two will talk me to death.” ‘That didn’t sound like me,’ thought Kanaya as she was tossed a cup surrounded by purple energy, ‘perhaps I’ve already drank too much. Oh well, a little more couldn’t hurt,’ she thought as she downed the whole thing in a single gulp. Now she was feeling loose, but she didn’t want the others to see her like this, “Alright everyone, show’s over,” she said referencing the crowd watching from inside the building. “This doesn’t concern you all so please leave us to our discussion.”

“The hell it doesn’t concern us Kanaya, Nepeta and the Spiderbitch break half the bar to kill each other, and you say it isn’t our fault,” Karkat complained.   
“I will handle it Karkat as I’ve done in the past, but for now please go inside and enjoy yourselves,” Kanaya said firmly trying to keep herself from slurring her words or blowing up at her leader.

“But Kanaya-,” Karkat started to say.

“Karkat Vantas,” when Kanaya said this Karkat visibly winced, “I believe I said that I will handle it, so please go inside.” Karkat blushing from embarrassment at being scolded went back inside with Terezi cackling latched onto his arm. The rest soon followed but most glanced back trying to get a little bit more of the story, but Kanaya’s stern look made them leave double-time. She turned to the three trolls behind her in an attempt to get to the bottom of things but found only Nepeta and Vriska standing while Equius was found unconscious on his back, yet he had smile on his face. “What happened to Equius,” she wondered more aloud than to either of them, but Vriska answered anyway, as she was known to do.

“Weeeeeeeell you see Fussyfangs,” she said as she moved to put her arm around Kanaya’s shoulder, Nepeta noticed this but could only let out a small, completely platonic she told herself, growl at the intimacy between the two. “It all started mere moments ago when you took a healthy swig of your blood and then yelled at everyone. Equius over there spied some of that red gunk humans call blood dripping down the corner of your mouth and couldn’t tear himself away. He started muttering for a towel and when you started to yell he lost it mumbling something like ‘the depravity’ and fell over in a sweat and lust coma,” Vriska explained gently and suspiciously.

“That’s not what happened Vriska and you know it,” Nepeta shouted as she glared at the spidertroll. “Well the first parts true, but you hit Equius in the head with your dice and knocked him out when he was distracted by Kanaya’s vulgarity, he didn’t faint,” she said standing up for her moiral.

“Whatever kittygirl, my way sounds better,” Vriska said rolling her eyes.

“Well now that we have that settled,” Kanaya said bringing her hand to her forehead, but to Nepeta’s chagrin made no effort to move away from Vriska, “why were the two of you having a dispute, if Equius and I didn’t interrupt you, one or both of you could have gotten hurt?”

Again Nepeta tried to open her mouth to tell the ‘true’ version of what had happened, but Vriska interrupted her again, “don’t me such a mother lusi Kanaya, we weren’t doing anything that bad, just testing the waters on a black tryst, nothing that really concerns you,” she lied through her teeth without even the slight sense of shame Nepeta noticed as her own jaw dropped. 

‘That bitch,’ Nepeta screamed in her head as she was feeling a lot of very platonic hate for her right now. But it was the same thing as before with Vriska, if she denied it she would be the one who wasn’t believed. When Kanaya turned to get Nepeta’s side of the story all she could do was remain silent. Kanaya seemed to go along with Vriska’s story, but when she looked at Nepeta she looked almost a bit hurt for some reason.

“Very well, you are right Vriska, it isn’t any of my business if you two wish to pursue a relationship, black or otherwise. However, I must request that you refrain from causing such a public scene, it is my understanding that black romances can be very messy, and should probably remain behind closed doors,” Kanaya said firmly, a bit too stiffly for Nepeta.

“Hold on fussyfangs, I said we were just testing the waters of what could be, we haven’t decided on anything yet, so don’t go buying a funeral wreath or anything. It could be something great but I think we need to antagonize each other more before we decide to get serious. Maybe i’ll do something in the near future,” Vriska said suspiciously.  
“What is that supposed to mean Vriska,” Kanaya asked and Nepeta got into a fighting stance to prepare for an upcoming assault.

But apparently Vriska didn’t want another fisticuffs match with Nepeta, she went for a different route, “oh nothing fussyfangs, don’t worry about it, by the way you still have some of the mutant human blood on your face,” she gestured all over her own face for emphasis.

“Really? How embarrassing, where is it,” Kanaya asked as she blushed a dark green in embarrassment.

“Oh just right here,” Vriska said, and with that clichéd line, as she pulled Kanaya into a forced yet passionate kiss while Nepeta could only watch the two embrace.

This wasn’t any of her business, Nepeta kept telling herself as she watch the two still making out, she didn’t have any romantic entanglement with either of them so there was no reason why she should be upset with this scene. But still, she couldn’t help but be jealous… seriously, that bitch! Kanaya had broken up with her a long time ago; she didn’t even care about Kanaya at all, she was just doing this to piss off Nepeta like she said she would inside. But that wasn’t all that the psychic decided to do in her mind games, she snaked her hands down around to Kanaya’s behind and gave it a good natured spank. This forced Kanaya to let out a soft, yet sensual euff, that Nepeta wanted to hear over and over again, but, ‘how dare Vriska harm such a fine ass that belong to her,’ Nepeta thought. The, her, being Kanaya and not Nepeta of course, because it would be ridiculous for Nepeta to claim ownership of Kanaya’s behind no matter how fine of a derriere it was. This pushed her too far though and she moved in between the two of them and pushed them apart, roughly pushing Vriska away while she supported Kanaya who was catatonic from the kiss and getting spanked.

“You are just too easy to mess with kitty girl, perhaps too easy for a real black romance, but a hate fling or two might be more your speed. Well you’re boring me now so I’m gonna go mess with someone else, but I’ll be in touch, with both of you,” Vriska said as she blew both of them a kiss. But as she was walking away she paused and turned to Nepeta and Kanaya, “by the way Neeeeeeeepeta, I was with Kanaya for a long time, a real long,” she added just to annoy Nepeta, “and I know what happens when Kanaya drinks human blood, a couple of sips will loosen her up as seen. But when she drinks a lot like she just did, she gets really mess up; I would take her home before gets really sloppy.” It was at this moment, as if hit by a metric ton of plot convince that Kanaya suddenly dropped from her graceful stance that Nepeta clinged to, to a pile or drunken sexy rainbowdrinker taller than any cattroll that Nepeta had to hold up. “Kind of like that,” Vriska said with a laugh, “have fun,” she let out behind her as she walked away from the scene leaving Nepeta alone with a sloppy Kanaya.

But luckily for Nepeta she wouldn’t have to explain to most of the others what about what had happened as Aradia came out from the bar looking for them. “I’m sorry about eavesdropping, but I was merely wondering want had happened to Equius and it appears I found him, are you alright Nepeta,” the kind rustblood asked as she knelt beside her matesprit with a cute smile on her face.

“I’m fine, I just wish that Kanaya was a little shorter,” Nepeta said as she struggled to keep the jadeblood from falling over, “I also wish she was a little less handsy,” she said now trying to keep Kanaya’s hands off her own chest while trying to keep both of them steady.

“I can’t help it if you’re so pretty,” Kanaya whined uncharacteristically, “even though your outfit suits you I could make you one that would make you completely irresistible,” Kanaya said making kissing motions towards the shorter cattroll. Her words made Nepeta blush and find it harder to push Kanaya away.

“Why don’t you take Kanaya back to her hive for the night and make sure she doesn’t get into trouble. I’ll take care of Equius and when he wakes up I’ll make sure that he knows where you are so he won’t worry.” Aradia motion carrying the huge blueblood with her psychic powers easily.

“That would be wonderful Aradia, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“Oh don’t worry, it’s no trouble at all, in fact the fact that he’s unconscious may make my plans for tonight easier,” Aradia send as she licked her lips maliciously.

“I’m gonna pretend that you didn’t just say that about my moiral,” Nepeta said shuttering at what her moiral’s redblooded matesprit would be doing to him as he slept; perhaps it was a good thing that she was staying over at Kanaya’s this night instead of returning to the hive she shared with Equius. But she took Aradia’s advice and brought Kanaya back to her hive with a little difficulty. It was hard fending off a taller, stronger, frisky troll who wanted to have sexy times, especially when she really didn’t want to.

Eventually, Nepeta reached Kanaya’s hive feeling a bit violated, yet turned on at the same time. She didn’t want to get more confused by undressing Kanaya so she deposited her on the couch instead of placing her in her recuperacoon. Besides, Kanaya cared a lot about her clothes, and even though Nepeta didn’t feel the same way about her own, it didn’t feel right to drop her in the sopor slime. Especially since the dress she was wearing was one of Kanaya’s favorites and a really nice one. She hoped that Kanaya would understand and forgive her if she didn’t have good dreams tonight. 

While she just woke up Nepeta couldn’t say no to a nice cat nap. She would feel bad though if she used Kanaya’s recuperacoon and had a nice dreamless sleep while she was forced to endure a night full of ancient memories of Alternia. So she decided to curl up into a ball on one of Kanaya’s chairs to take a nap, the last thing she saw as her eyes closed was a sleeping Kanaya, and she felt at peace before drifting off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was the one I had a hard time writing for a while because I didn't really know how i wanted it to play out, i had a vague idea, but had a hard time putting it together and I hope that it works to everyone's liking but i understand if it falls flat when compared to the other chapters.


	9. Dreams and Weretrolls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank Dkey for pointing out that Kanaya is actually a higher in the hemospectrum than Nepeta. I am not sure if i'm going to change it or correct it, since at this moment it isn't planned to be an important part in the story but who knows.

Between Jade and Green Chapter 9

This time Kanaya wasn’t the beautiful troll Maiden that was being chased by some feline clawbeast in Alternia’s past; she was an outside observer to the scene, like a ghost. The female troll was breathing heavily overlooking a steep cliff as was the custom for someone running from a horrifying monster. The Beast wasn’t right behind her, again as was customary the monstrous cat creature would not appear until the best time to frighten its prey would present itself. After a few thundering steps echoed through the forest that showed the Beast was getting closer they stopped for a moment, only to return again much louder this time showing the Beast in its full terrifying glory.

The clawbeast was terrifying, yet magnificent in its own horrifying way Kanaya would have to admit; it stood on its hind legs as if imitating a troll, and its golden eyes displayed an almost playful intelligence as it admired its trapped prey. In a similar vein the troll girl was obviously attracted in some way to the Beast along with terrified; perhaps the Beast’s power was what sparked the feelings of attraction, or perhaps the Maiden troll was attempting to develop a form of black romance for the feline before she was killed. Regardless for her reason however, Kanaya could practically feel the Maiden’s lust mixing with her fear that seemed to stain the air itself. The clawbeast seemed to smell the Maiden’s arousal as well; it didn’t move to attack instead it seemed to smile and prowl a bit closer swaying a bit as it moved closer.

Before Kanaya’s eyes as the Beast moved closer to the Maiden, it shifted from a horrific clawbeast form to a beautiful, yet dangerous looking, nude troll girl. She was tall for a female and quite young; her body was so amazing that Kanaya could swear she was womanly perfection carved from marble instead of simple gray flesh as she knew the Beast was. 

The Maiden and Kanaya could only stare shocked at the naked cattroll before them who moved to observer the Maiden more closely. “What do we have here,” the Beast asked as it cupped the Maiden’s chin in a show of dominance, even in her more trollish form the Beast was a good head taller than Maiden. It made a small scratch on the Maiden’s neck and licked the small amount of blood off agonizingly slow, “a jadeblood, one of the Empress’ special birther maidens, of all trolls wandering alone in my jungle, so far away from a city that were one of your status would be protected and pampered. It isn’t a crime to roam here of course, all are free to prance and play about my forest as they wish, as long as they pay their queen the toll.” The Beast, never letting one of her hands leave the jade maiden’s neck, held up some of the Maiden’s hair in her off claw; letting out a long sniff of the Maiden’s hair before letting it drop.

“Please, I didn’t mean to trespass, I just assumed that this land was like all of Alternia and belonged to the Empress, I didn’t know it was yours. I will leave and never return if you let me leave with my life,” the Maiden said shivering with fear before the massive lusty wargtroll. 

“But what if I enjoy your company, perhaps I don’t want you to go far away where I may never look upon such a vision of beauty again. Even if that wasn’t the case, there is still a matter of the payment that you owe me for trespassing in the first place,” now the Beast was circling the Maiden taking in every sight and scent she could of the helpless girl before her. “Would I be too bold if I asked the name of the work of art who stands before me, and why she would risk so much to travel in my domain?”

The Maiden despite herself blushed at the compliments that the Beast laid upon her, there was no debate that she was one of the most beautiful trolls in Alternia, but her looks were never described in such a savage tones yet sophisticated words. “My name is Minalu, Minalu Westsing, and I am on an important errand for the Empress herself, which I should really get back to. As for your toll, my mistress had given me an abundant sum to make sure my sure I complete my task as fast as I can, you are welcome to it to pay for my affront to you,” she held out a bulging sack of coins as an offering to the wargtroll.

The Beast took the bag of coins from the Maiden’s open hands softly and held it up to her eyes to observe it, but even as she took one of the coins from the bag and held it between two fingers to look at it was obvious that she wasn’t nearly as interested in the coins than her other prize. “Shiny, and even pretty,” she admitted, but rounded on the Maiden again, “but your currency is useless to me. What am I going to spend it on, more trees, a meal, or perhaps pleasurable company? The former I have far too much of, and in the latter two the chase and taking what you wish is half of the fun, wouldn’t you agree Minalu?” The Beast asked this time standing behind the Maiden and wrapping her arms around the frightened smaller girl possessively. The jadeblooded maiden couldn’t’ muster up enough strength to say anything in response and remain silent, only letting out soft moans whenever the Beast touched her. “No, I have a much better way that you can pay me for your crime than these worthless coins, and I can guarantee that you will enjoy it almost as much I do,” now the Beast started to plant little kisses on her prey’s unprotected neck.

“Please, don’t,” Minalu quietly begged and started to tear up; Kanaya wasn’t sure what Minalu was sincerely begging or just trying to weakly get her predator to stop since she didn’t want to be forced into this.

“Why, I can tell you’re attracted to me, from your smell and the way your body reacts to me alone. What is stopping you; don’t tell me there is someone else? Do you have a matesprit of your own,” the Beast asked Minalu in an almost mocking tone.

“Yes, I do in fact, I do have a matesprit and I care about her very much. So please, don’t do this,” Minalu begged.

“So tell me about her, what makes her so specially that you would give up the opportunity to fill a bucket with a creature as magnificent as me?” the Beast requested, but Kanaya could tell, even as an outsider, it was obvious that it was a demand and not a request.

“Well,” Minalu started her face jade as the Beast had finally stopped groping her to listen. “Artemis is the most beautiful troll, I’ve ever seen, even in the court of the Empress. She is kind, yet strong, gentle, yet fierce, and she cares about me too try anything at least once that I cook up even if she doesn’t like it at first. I know in my heart that she cares about me enough that she would do anything for me no matter what it is,” she finished with a soft smile almost forgetting the situation she was in for a moment.

The Beast paused for a moment absorbing what she had just heard quietly. “She sounds amazing,” she admitted, “almost to amazing to believe, how do I know you aren’t just trying to make me jealous? From the way you talk about her she is perfect in every way, yet the way you are acting now is like a maid who had never filled a pail at all, could you really be so innocent if you had such a perfect matesprit all along? I don’t believe you, which means that you are lying to me, and I will let you know what happens to those who lie to me,” her gentle tone suddenly turned harsh as if it had never been there at all.

“But it’s true,” Minalu pleaded, but could only sob her words out.

“Still lying, are we,” the Beast’s tone was playful, but in a far darker way, “well I have ways of getting the truth from little harlots like you.” Without even letting Minalu get a word in the Beast tore of Minalu’s already meager clothing with one swift movement of her claws. Now with both of bare to the world, the Beast scooped the jadeblood up in her powerful arms and carried her away to her den. Kanaya was dragged along as well, by some force that could actually affect her in this dream and was brought to the inside of the cave as well.

Kanaya was forced to watch the very primal scene where the Beast took Minalu with such strength Kanaya never could have imagined. The worst part was that even though Minalu tried to fight against it the best she could, it was obvious that the Beast held true to her promise and the jadeblood enjoyed the act even though she tried so hard to fight and get away. After what seemed like an eternity of watching them sweat, moan, and claw at each other Kanaya finally saw the Beast rolled off her prize; both of them breathing heavily from the act, yet the Beast looked very satisfied nonetheless. She began to clean herself with her tongue as feline clawbeasts were known to do and looked at her victim as if more annoyed that she was upset than anything else. “How long are you going to sit there and mope Minalu, you can’t tell me that you didn’t enjoy yourself,” the Beast asked almost uncaringly as she continued to groom herself.

“You know very well why I’m upset,” Minalu said coldly, her tone surprised Kanaya; it was unlike anything the other jadeblood had sounded like throughout the whole dream. “You tore my dress,” as if that was what bothered her most out of her whole ordeal, “do you know how long it took me to make this dress, the dress that I made specifically for you Artemis Starfang you great brute,” she slapped her attacker on the shoulder in retaliation.

“I panicked and needed to improvise to compensate for when you surprised me,” Artemis whined almost pathetically for a Troll her size. But then she looked down and gave Minalu her big kittycat eyes, “I didn’t expect you to say all those sweet things about me okay. I know that I’m not as smart or as sophisticated as the other trolls you’re used to, so I’d be okay with you lying about me alright. Were you telling the truth though?” she sounded more like a child who had just left her larval stage and was being disciplined by her lusi. 

Minalu instantly dropped her icy attitude and took Artemis’ much larger head between her hands and forced her lover to meet her gaze. “Of course the things I said were true, every word of it you stupid head. It doesn’t matter to me that you aren’t as sophisticated or stuck up as the city trolls I know, I care about all of you no matter what,” she brought their lips together and kissed her matesprit affectionately.

Now that their little game was done it was the large cattroll’s turn to blush deep green, it was almost comical really. “So then, even though I ruined your dress, you’ll forgive me and give me my reward,” she gave Minalu a cheeky grin.

Minalu gave her a look before letting out a cute giggle and gave her matesprit a gentle shove, “of course you dummy, you did my fantasy so I can at least reward you by doing what you want to do. Assume the position please,” she asked and Artemis eagerly stood up and then sat down leaning against one of the walls of her cave and lounged against it letting her naked self bare to the world, her Matesprit, and Kanaya.

But surprisingly Minalu instead of doing something sexual or dirty to her matesprit’s naked self, she climbed onto Artemis’ lap and merely placed her head on her lover’s breast. It was rather sweet Kanaya had to admit, now that she knew the dominance between the two was just simple roleplaying. However, even as she watched the tender scene her dream world seemed to fall apart and a feeling of dread tore through her forcing her to wake it. 

Kanaya didn’t wake up fearful this time, but she woke up with a pounding headache and sweaty. She was lost for a moment before she realized she was her own livingblock. Then she looked at Nepeta and her heart flipped and flopped a bit, now she saw parts of Artemis in the cute kitten. She tried to stop her heart from beating faster but she couldn’t and even though she still had a feeling of dread carried over from her dream just looking at Nepeta seemed to make her calm down easily. So much so, that she didn’t realize that she was standing over Nepeta and placed a kiss on the cattroll’s head. Embarrassed, she jumped away from her friend, wondering why she had done that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S.  
> I'm not sure how this chapter turned out honestly since it doesn't have a whole lot to do with the whole plot of the story yet, but I wrote it anyway and I think it with Kanaya's dream early it fits. I hope it isn't too descriptive and offends anyone as well. All sexual acts are consensual and between a loving couple, and described rather than shown hopefully.  
> P.S.S.  
> Minalu's name came from mixing Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra's first names from Dracula, as well as Westenra mixed with Hellsing for her last name.  
> Artemis' came from Artemis the Greek goddess of the moon and hunt, that's kind of obvious, but i wanted to clarify just in case. I didn't really try to be clever with her name.  
> P.S.S.S  
> The idea for the two of them came from the ancestors, I figured that if a troll can have one ancestor they feel close to than why not another for both of them.  
> Minalu is supposed to have Kanaya's love of fashion and caring, as well as The Dolorosa's fanon assumption that she enjoys being dominated since a lot of fics portray her being happy in Mindfang's thrall. not sure if it's true but that's what inspired her here.  
> Artemis was supposed to have Nepeta's love of role-playing, and the Disciple's loving nature.  
> I hope you enjoy the chapter and please reviews are always helpful


	10. Breakfast and Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating in so long, school has just started and I’ve come down with a case of being lazy. With school starting I probably won’t be able to update as often as I would like so please bear with me. I hope to update at least once every 2-3 weeks just so you guys know I haven’t given up on this story. If it takes longer for me to update than that just send me a message or write a review telling me to get my butt in gear and hopefully I will be able to do just that.

Between Jade and Green Chapter 10

Kanaya watched Nepeta as she slept from her kitchen window, and to be honest she wasn’t thinking about much, just enjoying the sight before her. She had made a cup of tea for herself, but she mostly spent her time absently stirring the brew around rather than drink it. The last thing she remembered from last night was Vriska crashing through a window and stopping Nepeta from attacking her. It was strange that she couldn’t remember anything after that, it was possible that she blacked out, but only a few sips of even Roxy’s almost infected blood shouldn’t of made her black out like that. How did she get home if she blacked out anyway? Nepeta most likely had something to do with it since they were both asleep in her living room when she had awoken. If that was the case than it was certainly nice of Nepeta to do so, she didn’t have to go out of her way to do that. Especially since everyone seemed to think that the two of them were a couple, such an action would only spark more rumors from sources that would be much more believed than Vriska.

But even though she wished Nepeta didn’t go through all that trouble just for her, Kanaya felt a bubble of happiness in the pit of her stomach when she thought of Nepeta acting just for her. She tried to push those thoughts away, telling herself that that’s what friends do, it didn’t mean anything, but even as she tried to suppress it some happiness bubbled up. She put herself to work to get her mind off the mental struggle she was having by making breakfast for the two of them.

Soon Kanaya’s hive smelled like bacon, sausage, and fresh bread. Kanaya didn’t really know what Nepeta liked to eat for breakfast, if she ate anything at all, so she figured that the best way to find out was to make a little bit of everything. To be honest, she was a pretty good cook, but she was out of practice since she hadn’t anyone besides herself to make meals for. Once she finished Kanaya admired the banquet she had made; eggs, ham, bacon, sausage, biscuits, toast, and porridge, perhaps she had overdone it, but she figured whatever Nepeta and herself didn’t eat she could save for tomorrow or even the next day. Perhaps all of next week even, Kanaya mused to herself as she stared at her spread with a chuckle.

Kanaya glided over silently to a stirring Nepeta who must have smelled the food. It was quite a cute sight to see Nepeta squirm around straddling the lines between waking and sleep, so cute in fact that Kanaya was almost going to allow her to stay asleep. Unfortunately to do so would give the food too much time to cool, so she chose to bite the bullet and wake the sleeping cattroll. “Nepeta,” Kanaya said in her most gentle voice as she stroked the sleeping girl’s shoulder gently in an attempt to wake her.  
“Not now Equius,” Nepeta complained half asleep, “it’s too early.”

Kanaya had to suppress a reaction that was known as ‘squeeing,’ as she observed the half asleep greenblood. She resisted the impulse to take Nepeta into her arms and hug her for a good ten minutes. ‘But why shouldn’t I,’ she thought to herself, it wasn’t a strictly flushed thing to do. Friends hugged each other all the time, especially Nepeta, Kanaya doubted anyone on the planet wouldn’t want to hug a half-asleep Nepeta, and anyone who said they didn’t is a liar. Still, she might as well offer Nepeta options of “I realize this is rather earlier for you, but since you’ve slept so much lately I was hoping you would join me for breakfast. If you wish to sleep some more I would be more than happy to let you, but I prepared quite a lot of food, too much perhaps now that I think about it. I couldn’t finish it all myself if I was starving.”

At the mention of food Nepeta’s ears perked up before the rest of her did. “Food, food sounds good right now,” Nepeta still hadn’t opened her eyes but she was sitting up vertically. She let out what could possibly be the world’s cutest yawn and opened her eyes for real. Her instincts told her that this wasn’t her house and she was about to go into an attack stance, but at the same time she felt completely safe. This was Kanaya’s house she was able to tell herself, nothing bad could get her here. She suddenly realized that she was being watched and she looked up as far as she could go until she was bending backwards, and she saw Kanaya standing over her trying to stifle a laugh. Not for the first time Nepeta cursed her adorable nature; normally she enjoyed being the cute one, but at times like this where everything she did was so adorable people couldn’t help but giggle at everything she did it could be frustrating. However, for some reason it didn’t bother her as much as it should right now, perhaps it was because it was Kanaya who was laughing, and not someone who would laugh at her to be cruel.

“Has anyone ever told you that you are adorable when you’re sleeping,” Kanaya said without really thinking. She hadn’t meant to compliment her friend so boldly, but it just slipped out.

Nepeta blushed green at the kind words of the beautiful troll and rubbed the back of her head, “well Equius has before, and so has Aradia, I try not to fall asleep in front of anyone else though. A huntress has to be aware of those around her at all times you know.”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with falling asleep in front of me though,” Kanaya observed.

“Well yeah, but you’re different Kanaya, I know you would never hurt me,” Nepeta proclaimed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh I don’t know Nepeta,” Kanaya flashed behind her with her rainbowdrinker speed and sniffed her friend’s neck, “you smell good enough to eat. If you fall asleep in my presence again, I might not be able to help myself.” A moment after she realized that this may be a bit far to go for a joke she quickly moved back to her previous location. “Umm, perhaps you would like to have breakfast now.”

“Yum,” Nepeta said trying to alleviate the awkward feelings that Kanaya’s actions, but she couldn’t deny that she was still enjoying being complimented, even if it was playfully like that. But still, she thought back a moment to when Kanaya was at her neck and she let out a slight shiver of pleasure. They walked over and sat down at Kanaya’s table, and even though Nepeta had already said yum, she was wondering if that had been an understatement to describe the spread Kanaya had prepared. Every fiber of her being told Nepeta to dig into the feast with gusto and she wanted too, but that wouldn’t seem very lady like and she didn’t want to look like a fool in front of Kanaya. Instead Nepeta forced herself to eat slowly and carefully, cutting her food with a knife rather than tear at it with her teeth; she hoped she was the image of a dainty lady.

She didn’t hide it well, as Kanaya noticed what she was doing quite early, “we aren’t at a fancy highblood banquet Nepeta, we’re just two friends having breakfast, no manners are needed see,” for emphasis Kanaya stabbed a large piece of bacon with her fork. It was too big for her mouth, but instead of cutting it with her knife that was at hand she tore it in half with her fangs. Even though she had done it for Nepeta’s benefit, she couldn’t help but feel empowered when her fangs tore the meat of her breakfast.

After that Nepeta dug in and ate as she normally did, she was surprised how good Kanaya’s cooking was and the variety. “By the Sufferer and human Jesus, this is the best thing I have ever tasted Kanaya,” she exclaimed excitedly. Now that she tasted what she could only assume would be what angels eat for breakfast, she couldn’t help it and went into overdrive.

“Thank you very much Nepeta,” Kanaya said happily eating much less than Nepeta, but enjoying herself nonetheless. “I’m glad you like it, I fear that normally I only make simple fair for myself usually, but I’m happy when I have guests to feed actually. I hope that you accept this meal as a thank you as well.”

“A thank you for what,” Nepeta asked curiously through cheeks stuffed with food.

“Well for bringing me home last night, to be honest I can’t remember much after Equius and I stopped you and Vriska from killing each other. I must have blacked out or something. But I woke up safe and sound on one of my couches and you were on another sleeping so I can only assume that you were the one to bring me back correct?”

For a moment Nepeta contemplated telling Kanaya about what happened, but decided against it she should be spared from Vriska’s antics and her own drunken groping. She swallowed her food in one gulp, “normally, I would say that you didn’t need to thank me, but your cooking is too good. I may actually be tempted to be greedy and say that just a single breakfast is not enough,” Nepeta giggled.

Kanaya smiled and let out a good full bodied laugh as well, “well, Nepeta if that is the case than I must truly owe you quite a bit. If you would like I’d be more than happy to make you a meal any time you wish.”

In the past day Kanaya in Nepeta’s books went from a friend who she didn’t know that well but wanted to know more, a friend who is very strong and can scare off a threat, a person who she trusted with a secret that could mean her life, a potential red partner, to now the best person in the world. “Really Kanaya you mean it,” Nepeta asked and somehow her eyes literally became star shaped and spinning. 

For a moment Kanaya just watch Nepeta’s eyes in fascination, the spinning stars were almost hypnotizing, but eventually she shook herself out of it. “Really Nepeta, I can’t promise that there will always be this much food, but you are welcome to a meal at my table at any time,” she promised.

For several minutes they ate wordlessly, but it was a good kind of quiet where you enjoy another’s company instead of just their words. Until Nepeta asked a question that had been worrying her, “How did you sleep last night Kanaya?” It may have seemed like a weird question, but Nepeta was worried if she had done the right thing by letting her sleep on the couch instead of putting her in her recuperacoon. “I know you had a weird dream earlier yesterday that you weren’t sure about and I hope that last night was better. I would have put you in your recuperacoon, but I know you love that dress and I didn’t want to ruin it.”

Kanaya thought back to the dream and she could almost hear the moans of the jadeblood and her warg lover and she instantly blushed. “It was quite alright Nepeta my dreams were unusual, but not at all unpleasant,” she couldn’t meet Nepeta’s eyes when she said this, but she managed a smile nonetheless. “And thank you for taking my attire into account it was rather sweet of you.”

“No problem Kanaya, I’m just glad that the cat monster didn’t chase you this time, we can be quite scary when we’re hunting,” Nepeta proclaimed proudly.

Kanaya imagined for just a moment Nepeta in Artemis’ place and herself in Minalu’s and suppressed a shiver. “How did you sleep last night Nepeta dear? I noticed that you also slept without the aid of sopor slime as well, you didn’t have to. You could have just gone to my room to sleep.”

“That’s okay Kanaya, I don’t mind slimeless dreams, sometimes they can be exciting,” Nepeta replied emptying her plate. “If you didn’t dream of the big cat again then, what did you dream about Kanaya,” she asked curiously noticing Kanaya’s flushed face.

“Well I did dream about the cat again actually, it just turns out she was friendly than I first thought,” it wasn’t exactly a lie, at least not completely, but that was all Kanaya would say about her dream. “Are you finished Nepeta,” she asked trying to change the subject.

Nepeta gave her plate one last lick, “yep all done. I’ve never felt so full and so happy,” she said sitting back and patted her still slim belly.

“I’m glad that you enjoyed yourself,” Kanaya said bringing over the now empty plates to the sink to clean them.

Feeling guilty Nepeta asked, “do you want any help?”

“No, don’t worry, I’ve got everything covered,” Kanaya said sweetly still standing in front of the sink with her back turned.

Nepeta tried not to be discouraged; she didn’t want Kanaya to think that she wasn’t interested in being here other than the food and protection. “What are your plans for today Kanaya?”

“Oh nothing much, I had planned to spend today sketching out a few new dress designs that I thought of a day or so ago,” Kanaya replied. 

Nepeta let out a soft, “oh,” when she heard. She didn’t want to sound rude, but to be honest that sounded like a waste of a day to her. Sitting in a small room and drawing all day didn’t sound fun, and Nepeta loved to draw, just not for hours on end without stopping. She had been hoping to spend the day outside doing something, but with Gamzee was out there and not knowing if his insanity was all in his head or her own, she didn’t quite feel safe alone.

Kanaya stopped her washing for a moment to consider Nepeta’s tone; the cattroll wanted to spend time with her. Most of the other trolls wouldn’t be up at this time and Nepeta had wasted last night because she had to carry her home. It wouldn’t be right to ask someone as energetic as Nepeta to stay cooped up in her hive just watching Kanaya draw; the least Kanaya could do was entertain her for the day to make up for her lost night. “I was planning on going outside to do my sketches. I don’t think that I’ll be too inspired creatively if I just stay in the same room every day. It’s a beautiful day and I’m hoping that some fresh air and the beauty of the great outdoors will inspire me to do some work. Would you like to join me?”

“Yes,” Nepeta shouted excitedly, and far louder than she wanted to. “I mean yes,” Nepeta said quietly this time, “I’m okay with going outside if you want,” she said almost silently. Kanaya almost wanted to reach out and hug her right then and there, but it probably would be more awkward.

“Let me just change my dress and grab my sketchbook and we can leave,” Kanaya said glad that Nepeta was okay with her plan. She raced up to her respiteblock and quickly replaced her slept in dress with a new one. She was rather glad that Nepeta didn’t place her in the slime last night, she had cleaned worst things out of her red dress, including her blood and other’s blood, but it was nice to have one less chore to do. She chooses another dress the light green one that would be pretty to wear on a day like today, it was functional as well, as it was light and didn’t hinder her movements too much. She grabbed her sketchpad and headed back down stairs to where Nepeta was.

Nepeta waited as patiently as she could, which admittedly wasn’t that long, it seemed like forever since Kanaya went upstairs to change. She didn’t see why the rainbowdrinker needed to change, the dress she was wearing was pretty already and since they were going outside it didn’t matter if it was already dirty since it was only going to get dirtier. Perhaps that wasn’t the right way to phrase that, Nepeta thought to herself. Kanaya would always be Kanaya though; coming back from the dead had proved that, she would probably never get over this weird fashion obsession of hers. Not that it was a bad thing of course; just that she was the only troll who probably cared about such things, except maybe Feferi and Aradia on occasions.

But then she heard Kanaya come down the steps and she turned around to see what dress she had chosen, she convinced herself to at least try and be interested, but what she saw shocked her. It was something out of one of Karkat’s stupid romcoms; Kanaya strolled down the stairs looking so beautiful in her green dress it seemed like she was walking in slow motion.

“Are you ready to go Nepeta,” Kanaya asked breaking Nepeta out of her stupor.

“Um yeah, I can go whenefur,” Nepeta said clumsily.

“Then let us depart,” Kanaya said taking Nepeta by the hand and taking them out the door. “By the way, would you like to stop by your hive before we get too far to change as well?”

Nepeta knew that Kanaya was only being thoughtful, but she couldn’t help but feel like she was saying that her outfit wasn’t good enough when compared to her own. Nepeta would admit that when compared to Kanaya at all she felt ugly when measured against the beautiful troll girl. She would normally say no to wasting time to just change clothes, but she felt like now she needed to. “Yeah maybe, that would be good, the stuff I’m wearing now is kind of itchy from sleeping in it, changing would be good,” Nepeta said pawing at her own clothes.

“I know the feeling,” Kanaya said not judgmentally at all, “I love your outfit, but I don’t think I could stand wearing the same thing two days in a row, even if I looked as cute as I did in it as you.”

Nepeta could only blush at Kanaya’s compliment and she turned even greener when she noticed Kanaya was still holding her hand, but she didn’t say anything since she was enjoying it so much.


	11. Embarrassment and Outfits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a short chapter, I just really didn’t want to add it to another chapter and make that longer. Not much happens now but I can promise that the next one big stuff happens and in the next ones after that. Embarrassment

Between Jade and Green chapter 11

Nepeta let Kanaya drag her along this time; it was only fair since she dragged the rainbowdrinker around yesterday. It wasn’t a long trip to her hive, but Nepeta enjoyed the handholding nonetheless. 

They reached the hive that Nepeta shared with Equius when Nepeta realized that her hive was nowhere near as nice as Kanaya’s was. Equius had scolded her a few times about her messiness, but she always told him that she would do it tomorrow and would ignored him. Why did she ignore him, she asked as she cursed her slothieness? Her respiteblock was particularly bad with her clothes strewn about and her walls covered with her finger paintings; it was embarrassingly bad when compared to Kanaya’s gorgeous and clean hive. 

When they reached the hive door, Nepeta dashed in front of Kanaya and blocked the door with her body and arms in a comical fashion that wouldn’t really help her in real life, but made it look like she was doing something. “Nepeta is something wrong,” Kanaya asked curiously.

“Well,” Nepeta started pushing her fingers together and flushing green, “I’m kind of embarrassed about my hive. It’s not like yours, it’s different and I don’t really want you to think less of me because of it.” Nepeta hung her head in shame she knew that she wasn’t the prettiest troll, or the most polite, or the best at anything that would be considered valuable, but she didn’t need to be compared to a perfect troll like Kanaya to know that.

Kanaya let out a laugh at Nepeta’s actions like the cattroll had expected, but it wasn’t the same type of laugh that she thought would come. It was a warm full-bodied laugh that seemed to echo kindness from the speaker. She placed both her hands on Nepeta’s shoulders to show that she was trying to make her feel better, “Nepeta you have nothing to worry about. I’ve seen plenty of hives before some messy some clean, I did live with Vriska for over a sweep which is why now I take such care to have my hive be neat. If I don’t judge anyone else, I certainly won’t judge you for having a messy hive okay?”

Nepeta let out a shy smile; she probably should have known that Kanaya wasn’t the type to judge another person at least not with something so trivial. But for some reason the jadeblood’s opinion mattered so much to her. She moved away from the door and beckoned Kanaya to enter with an overly elaborate bow. And they both laughed as Kanaya entered, but it was unfortunate that she did.

When the two of them entered Nepeta’s hive there was a couple screams, cries of anguish, and a mutter of quick apologies. It appears that Kanaya and Nepeta walked into Nepeta’s living area where Equius and Aradia were engaged in rather bizarre bucket filling play. “This isn’t what it looks like,” Equius said exasperated, but to be honest neither Kanaya nor Nepeta knew what exactly what the scene looked like. Equius was dressed in some sort of maid outfit and on all fours while being ridden by Aradia, who in turn was dressed like the human anti-hero Zorro, without the mustache. She had a whip in her hand that she had obviously intended to use, yet she wore a smile on her face. However, the strangest thing about the scene was that Aradia was not the only Aradia in the room; there were two other godtiered maids of time in the room. One was holding a camera and dressed in her regular godtiered outfit, the other however was dressed strangely, like a human director she would be described as if either Kanaya or Nepeta knew such a creature. “Cut,” yelled the director Aradia, “we have outside interference and it messed up the shot. Prepare to go again,” she announced over her headset. She turned away from the, ‘actors’ for lack of a better word, and turned to the two interlopers, “I’m sorry,” she said with a sweet smile, “we didn’t expect you home Nepeta for another few hours. So Equius and I decided to play around a bit, we’ll get all of this cleaned up in a few minutes, if you would just step outside,” she gestured to the door and the two left in a hurry.  
After about a five seconds the door opened again and Aradia beckoned them to come inside; there was only one in as far as either Nepeta or Kanaya could tell, with a very sweaty Equius sitting at the table his steel tankard shaking in his hands, wearing his regular attire thankfully. It seemed that Aradia was the only one not embarrassed by the incident as she spoke cheerfully as always as she led them to the table Equius was sitting at and placed a cut of warm tea before both of the girls. “I am sorry that you had to see that,” she spoke to both, we normally spend our time together at my hive, but since Nepeta had to carry you home Kanaya, we decided to try something new.”

“How very… forward of you two,” Kanaya said not meeting the eyes of anyone else at the table and quickly took a sip of her tea so she wouldn’t have to say anymore.  
“Yes, I suppose it is,” Aradia said beaming. “What are you doing up so early Nepeta? It’s not that I dislike your company this morning, but in all the time I’ve known you, you’ve loved sleeping in.”

“Well, Kanaya wanted to make me breakfast as a thank you for me bringing her home last night. And since she doesn’t need as much sleep as the rest of us and always gets up when the suns up she woke me up,” Nepeta explained keeping her eyes glued to her table. “Since I’m up anyway Kanaya and I are going to spend the day outside hanging out. We actually just stopped by so I could change my outfit for today.”

“I’m not sure about this Nepeta,” Equius finally spoke, “it is not proper for a civilized troll to go out and frolic in the daylight. Save for miss Maryam of course due to her unique constitution granted by her blood status,” Equius added nervously, he was worried that he had insulted Kanaya, but he was right, on Alternia trolls save jadebloods couldn’t even go out in the daylight, much less spend an extended amount of time.

He didn’t have to be nervous about what he said though, he was right for the most part. Those days had admittedly been rather lonely for Kanaya since she would normally be asleep when the others would be awake and visa versa. But things were different now that this sun wouldn’t burn the flesh of the others during the day. They still preferred the night to the day, but most of them would spend sometime during the day awake, and there was always the humans to hang out with.

“Oh don’t me such a stick in the mud Equius,” Aradia said giving him a playful shove. “After the improper show we gave them, spending time in the daylight seems almost proper troll behavior.” At Aradia’s blatancy the three remaining trolls glued their eyes to the table too embarrassed to meet the eyes of the others. “Here Nepeta let me help you pick out something to wear today. You’re regular outfit is cute, but you’ll be far too hot to do your normal activities in the sun if you’re all covered up.” Not really waiting for an answer Aradia grabbed Nepeta and dragged the younger girl upstairs to her own respiteblock leaving Kanaya and Equius alone.

The two sat in an awkward silence for a good minute and Kanaya knew that it would only get more and more uncomfortable. “If it helps,” Kanaya attempted, “you did look nice in the maid outfit.” It wasn’t the best compliment, or even a good one, but it was all Kanaya could think of. As soon as the words were out of her mouth though she knew that Equius would probably take it badly and they would be back to where they were before.

Surprisingly however, “thank you Miss Maryam,” Equius said not at all as embarrassed as one would suspect. “It was Aradia’s idea, but I thought that I played my role rather nicely,” Equius actually enjoyed the compliment.

“I’m sure you did,” Kanaya conceded, “but may I ask where you found that… ‘Outfit,’ of yours?”

“I just alchemized it when Aradia told me about this perverse fantasy of hers. Such an outfit or manner of dress doesn’t fit one of my standing, but I will admit I found it a little enjoyable,” Equius said but his brow started to perspire.

Kanaya chocked back a smile, even if Equius himself wasn’t her favorite troll, Kanaya was glad he and Aradia were able to work things out so they could be happy together. “I by no means wish to insult your alchemizing skill, but the garment that you created seems to be rather shabby to me.”

“Yes, you are right, I alchemized it in a hurry, I didn’t really care about how nice it looked compared to one properly made, but it served its purpose,” Equius agreed.

Their talk was casual if superficial, but Kanaya had a though about her dream. Equius was one of the more knowledgeable trolls when it came to the history of Alternia, second to perhaps only Aradia; perhaps he would know anything about the trolls in her dreams. “Equius, if I may interrupt, I was wondering if you had ever heard of two trolls from long ago, a jadeblood like me, named Minalu Westsing, and a wild troll named Artemis Starfang. Do you know anything about them?”

For a moment Equius was silent as he tried to remember, the names did sound familiar to him for some reason. “I believe I have heard of them, but I can’t remember where, perhaps in one of my old books back on Alternia,” he added.

Kanaya hung her head in sorrow, if he had read about them back on Alternia, than there was a good chance that they were destroyed along with everything else on the planet. She may never know why she was having these dreams now of all times, or what they meant. Sensing her disappointment Equius spoke up, “it may be a long shot, but there may be some of record of the two of them somewhere on the net, or perhaps Aradia would be able to find some mention of them as she travels the time stream. It would take a few days to get back to you though, you understand.”

There wasn’t a great chance that anything they could do would work, but they were willing to help and that made Kanaya happy. “Anything you can find would be most appreciated,” Kanaya said gratefully. 

Before she could say anything more Aradia interrupted them loudly proclaiming, “lady and gentleman, I give you Nepeta Leijon.” Aradia jumped down from the steps and hovered in the air for a moment with her wings before ushering Nepeta down as well. Nepeta stepped down the stairs looking very self-conscious in her new clothes. The outfit she was wearing was similar to Aradia’s old outfit that she used to go exploring ruins in, with a short gray skirt, but instead of a black shirt with her Ares sign on it, Nepeta wore a white button down shirt with her own Leo sign over her heart. It wasn’t an outfit that Nepeta normally wore, Aradia had given it to her as a gift a while ago, but she had never felt the need to wear it until now which seemed to be a special occasion. 

Aradia could pull something like this off, she was a statuesque troll woman, while Nepeta was a short little tomboy of a girl and couldn’t compare. Kanaya was surprised, she knew Nepeta was a beautiful girl, even if she covered herself up in boy’s clothes more often than not, Kanaya knew from her recent experiences with Nepeta she was more beautiful than she pretended to be. But this was different, Nepeta wasn’t decked out in some fancy outfit like Kanaya would make and wear at times, the clothes she was wearing were actually far more casual than Kanaya had expected, yet somehow Nepeta looked beautiful to Kanaya in them and her heart fluttered a bit. “You look lovely,” Kanaya managed to say sincerely and she was proud to see olive patches on Nepeta’s face to mean that she was a bit embarrassed to get complimented, but pleased all the same. “Shall we go outside and explore a bit,” Kanaya asked as she extended her arm to Nepeta.

For a moment Nepeta stared at Kanaya’s arm shyly, but eventually she took it, “we shall,” she said with a big smile that showed off all of her teeth. “Don’t wait up Equius, I don’t know when we’ll be back,” she said to her moiral as they left.


	12. Ours and A Turning Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sure if I did the end of this chapter justice, I pictured the scene in my head, but I’ll admit that I’m not sure if I described it very well. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it, but I will understand if not. To be honest I really wanted to get this chapter out as soon as possible because it marks a big change in the story. After this chapter things are going to be going down hard and fast until the end of the story.
> 
> *I have added some new stuff so that the characters feelings and emotions seem a bit more real to me. This was brought up by Ticker, and hopefully it sounds better.

Between Jade and Green Chapter 12

Nepeta brought Kanaya through the woods near to the town to her favorite spot. No one knew about the little clearing that Nepeta frequented when she needed to be alone or just too wanted to be out in the world, not even Equius or Terezi. Yet for some reason she wanted Kanaya to know about this place, maybe because Kanaya was a person who needed a place like this to calm her nerves, or maybe it was because Nepeta felt closer to Kanaya the past day than she had to anyone in a while. 

Equius was of course her moiral and she couldn’t ask for a better one, but now that the game was over and they weren’t on Alternia he didn’t need her as much anymore. He also had Aradia as his matesprit to calm him when he got out of control. Equius had changed for the better since they were brought back to life, and though she was definitely proud and happy for him, it made Nepeta feel almost useless all the time now. 

As for Terezi, she was probably Nepeta’s best friend after Equius; back on Alternia the two of them had spent many hours roleplaying and talking. They didn’t engage in flarping of course since Equius forbade her from playing that game to protect her from Vriska, but they had fun anyway. However, like with Equius, Nepeta’s relationship with Terezi had changed as well, again it wasn’t bad, but with Terezi it was awkward because what changed between the two of them was Terezi’s relationship with Karkitty. ‘No!’ she shouted at herself, ‘he’s not Karkitty, he’s Karkat, and he’s Terezi’s matesprit.’ Truthfully, she knew that Terezi and Karkat were going to end up together; they seemed to be made for each other regardless of their play fighting everyone could tell they were as red as Karkat’s blood for each other. Still, it hurt that she couldn’t even pretend that she had lost Karkat to Terezi when she wasn’t even in the running. She still liked Terezi a whole lot and same with Karkat, but it made her uncomfortable seeing them together and forcing herself to admit that she and Karkat weren’t ever going to be together.

Nepeta had other friends of course like Tavros, Feferi, Dirk, and Jade; for the most part she got along well with everyone other than Vriska, Eridan, or Gamzee, but she didn’t know why she choose Kanaya, out of all the others, to show this place too. Maybe it had to do with the fact that they were the only two single trolls that weren’t seen as pariahs by the others, or maybe it was because Kanaya was alone all the time and Nepeta wanted to show her that she didn’t have to be. ‘Most likely,’ a cynical part of her spoke up, ‘you are showing her your special place because you told her everything yesterday and she didn’t treat you like a freak.’ There was some truth to that Nepeta would have to admit, not surprising since it was her own self that said so, but Nepeta could tell that there was more too it than just that, even if she couldn’t figure it out yet.

Luckily however Kanaya spoke up to interrupt her inner debate, “I don’t mean to question your woodland skills Nepeta, but we are going the right way? We are straying rather far from town now; I haven’t actually ever been out this far since we first arrived.” Kanaya’s voice was a bit shallow, but Nepeta knew it wasn’t from the hike; all of them had faced far worse during and after the game and Kanaya’s rainbowdrinker body was stronger than most of their own. 

She sounded nervous to Nepeta and for a moment Nepeta thought she was making a mistake by bringing Kanaya here, but she was almost positive that she heard the excitement for an adventure in her voice as well. If she was right than Nepeta felt it would be worth it dragging Kanaya out here. “Don’t worry Kanaya its close,” Nepeta said dragging Kanaya behind her as she weaved a path through the trees merrily. 

Nepeta was true to her word, after a few minutes they reached the clearing and it was worth the journey. In fact it was so beautiful in the morning sun that Kanaya let out a gasp, “it’s beautiful Nepeta,” Kanaya whispered loud enough for Nepeta to hear. The clearing was rather small, but pretty, a stream ran through it and there was a broken log sitting in the right area to be used as a seat for whoever needed one. It was pretty nice Nepeta would have to admit, but she never thought that a sophisticated troll like Kanaya would think so. “What do you call it?”

Nepeta had never really thought of it before, everyone else tended to give fancy names to the new places they discovered on the new planet if only for fun, but Nepeta never felt this way about this place. “If I had to give it a name, I would call it… ‘Mine,’” Nepeta said proudly before giving it some thought. “Well I guess it isn’t just mine now since you know about it too, so what about instead, ‘Ours?’”

Kanaya was shocked at Nepeta’s selflessness, “Nepeta that is a sweet gesture, but this is your place, you can’t make it our place just because you’ve showed it to me.  
“here, Kanaya,” Nepeta said bringing Kanaya over to the fallen log ignoring Kanaya’s , “you can sit here and draw to your heart’s content while I frolic here. I’m going to go around and hunt some of the animals around here and play in the meadow, we can leave whenever you want so take your time.” It was rather rude to ignore Kanaya’s protests, but if she let the jadeblood go on and on she would just selflessly say that she couldn’t agree, which Nepeta didn’t want to hear. Kanaya let out a sigh but smiled the same, she was more than happy to be invited to Nepeta’s special place.

Nepeta intentionally moved away from where Kanaya sat, she enjoyed being around the other girl of course but she didn’t think that she would enjoy seeing Nepeta hunt small animals whens she was drawing dresses. Nepeta stalked around the meadow looking for any movement that her eyes were trained to see. She perched on a thick tree branch and overlooked the meadow, from her perch she saw a fat furry creature, humans called them squirrels she thought, but she didn’t know why. It was fat and furry though, which meant it was fair game though. She moved down her branch without making a sound, the squirrel just kept gnawing on a nut that it had found unaware it was doomed. Without a sound Nepeta pounced on the tiny fur creature so fast it didn’t have a chance to panic. Nepeta didn’t kill it though, it was helpless and powerless, not to mention Nepeta wasn’t hungry, and there was no point in killing it if she didn’t have to. The joy was in the hunt so Nepeta just let it go and it scampered away terrified, but no worse for the wear.  
For a couple of hours Nepeta continued chasing and catching different animals and letting them go for fun, some got away, but she was an experienced huntress and she let go more than escaped her. most were small rodents, some from Alternia and some from Earth, but she was also able to get a couple of birds which were always the hardest. She was in the zone though and felt like she couldn’t be stopped, by a simple thing like wings and being able to fly. She let go her last rabbit and as she watched it run at top speed back to the more densely wooded areas she wondered what Kanaya was doing.

Nepeta resumed the same stance and mindset she had when she hunted her prey, crouched on all fours, keeping herself as small as possible, and making no sound even when she breathed. It wasn’t the way trolls moved, but it was the way lusi move and they were much better hunters than trolls. She made her way over to Kanaya surprised that the older girl had yet to hear her, Kanaya’s rainbowdrinker senses were something to behold. She must really have been focused hard on whatever she was sketching if she didn’t even notice Nepeta yet.

The Huntress scampered up into a tree behind the drawing Jadeblood and observed her newest prey with great intent. The nimble Huntress carefully observes her prey, Nepeta said to herself in her head, making sure to note down everything that could be a potential hazard. Her lipstick can turn into a deadly chainsaw if unsheathed, definitely something to be wary of. Her body is curvaceous but rather slim, it would be a mistake to underestimate her though, as a rainbowdrinker Kanaya, or rather the Prey, had strength that rivaled Equius that would be hidden by her form. Yes, it would be a good idea to make detailed observations of the Prey’s curves to ensure they don’t get in the way, her large breasts and tight behind especially. ‘No,’ Nepeta said pounding slightly on her head with her fists, ‘stop perving on Kanaya, just because she has those sweet melons and tight badonkadonk to die for, and I’m doing it again,’ she screamed in frustration. Only in her head of course, no nimble Huntress would risk frightening away prey by doing something as foolish as screaming out loud in a forest.

‘I’m not supposed to feel this way about Kanaya,’ Nepeta told herself. 

But then a sly sneaky voice in the back of her mind spoke up, ‘but why not,’ it asked in a slow sensual purr.

‘What do you mean why not, she’s Kanaya, that’s why,’ Nepeta told herself, but she knew it was a weak argument.

‘Exactly, she is Kanaya,’ the voice said again, its silky tones echoing through Nepeta’s head. ‘Kanaya, who is: sweet, kind, understanding, strong, smart, a dozen other great things, and let us not forget gorgeous.’

‘But we’re just friends, and I’ve only gotten close to her the past day or so,’ Nepeta argued again, ‘and there’s still Kar-kat,’ Nepeta had to force herself to say Karkat instead of Karkitty, but she managed it all the same.

‘What about Karkat, you know you are practically over him now that he’s with Terezi. It’s just the dying embers of a flush crush and that’s all and you know it. And who cares about only getting close with Kanaya the past day or so, you are obviously attracted to her so go for it. It’s not like you are going to go up to her with a bucket in hand and say, ‘hello Kanaya, I don’t know if you know this but I’ve decided I really pity you, do you want to be my matesprit and fill this bucket with me?’ that would be stupid. You just need to talk to her and see if there’s anything there or if it’s just another flush crush, but whatever you do you can’t let this opportunity pass you by,’ the voice said adamantly.

‘Well what if I’m not attracted to her, then what you stupid voice,’ Nepeta yelled at the voice.

‘Nepeta, you’ve been arguing with your subconscious mind about how you feel about Kanaya for a good couple of minutes, so obviously there is something there. Not to mention while we’ve been arguing you haven’t stopped ogling Kanaya for even a second,’ Nepeta’s subconscious said with finality.

Nepeta tore her eyes away from Kanaya’s bountiful bosom blushing a bit (that was not planned by the way, author interlude), ‘oh shut up and go away, I need to finish my hunt,’ Nepeta said slowly climbing down the tree and resuming her Huntress persona. 

A few paces away shrunk to being right behind her target and Nepeta wasn’t sure if she should. Equius was strong enough to take her ‘strong pounces,’ but even he tended to fall over when she jumped on him. She didn’t want to hurt Kanaya or ruin her work so Nepeta decided to just startle her a little instead of jumping on top of the other girl. Instead she just put her chin on Kanaya’s shoulder and asked, “whatch doing?” it went almost exactly as well as Nepeta planned, Kanaya was only a little surprised and she didn’t get hurt or ruin her work which was good, she was even able to glance at the drawing Kanaya was making. She wasn’t entirely sure on this, but the troll girl who Kanaya was designing a dress for was perhaps the most beautiful girl that Nepeta had ever seen. Gorgeous was the best way to describe the girl, but Nepeta didn’t recognize her out of any of her friends, she didn’t even look like one of the girl humans if they were trolls. “I like your drawing Kanaya, but who is this girl, I don’t recognize her?”

Blushing, Kanaya could only say, “well it’s you Nepeta,” obviously Nepeta wasn’t supposed to see the drawing of her.

For a moment Nepeta wasn’t sure if she heard Kanaya right, there was no way that this beautiful girl was her. “Um Kanaya I think you might be mistaken, the girl in this picture is beautiful.”  
“And so are you,” Kanaya said naturally, as if it was a universal truth rather than her opinion. For a moment the two troll girls only looked at each other in silence as they both realized what Kanaya had said. Kanaya herself couldn’t say anything because she was so shocked that she had actually said that out loud, it was just so easy to say that it slipped out.

“Kanaya, what did you mean when you said that I’m beautiful,” Nepeta asked, her voice quiet but the strength of her words surprised even her.

“Well you know, you are very pretty and cute, no one can deny that,” Kanaya said while keeping her eyes on her hands on her laps so she wouldn’t have to meet Nepeta’s eyes. “I certainly wouldn’t, I mean I think you’re lovely and all.”

“Kanaya,” Nepeta said forcefully, interrupting Kanaya’s ramblings, “it’s not the same thing and you know it.” Nepeta slid herself on top of Kanaya and straddles her lap and forced Kanaya to look at her. “I’m not going to be mad or anything, but I just want to know, did you mean what you said?” She was obviously trying to keep her voice level, but her face was almost pure green against her grey skin. She moved closer to Kanaya’s face, so close that her forehead almost touched the other girl’s.

Kanaya tried to turn away from Nepeta, her face was jade as well, but she couldn’t force herself to tear her gaze from Nepeta’s. “I-I meant what I said Nepeta, you are beautiful to me.”

Nepeta was unable to say anything for a moment, she just let Kanaya’s words wash over her and the two of them didn’t seem to know what to do. But they were also very aware of each other and knew what they wanted to do; slowly they closed the already small distance between their lips and kissed. It wasn’t an overly passionate kiss or a sloppy makeout; instead it was warm and loving kiss that lasted quite a long time for a first kiss.

Somewhere in the back of Nepeta’s mind a quiet voice let out an, ‘I told you so,’ but Nepeta was too lost in Kanaya’s soft and warm lips that she didn’t even notice.


	13. Time and Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there were a few developments in the last chapter, kind of exciting and new, but you may hate me after reading this chapter. I’ve gotten a few reviews asking how Gamzee fits into the equation, I have a plan for him, but I want the relationship between Kanaya and Nepeta to be the focal point. Gamzee will come up eventually, but it could be several chapters.

Between Jade and Green Chapter 13

It was a long and sweet kiss, but it was done more out of instinct and unconscious desire rather than intention. When Kanaya awoke from her pleasant stupor she panicked and pushed away from Nepeta. She didn’t mean to put that much strength behind it, she only wanted to stop kissing Nepeta, but instead she wound up using too much force in an attempt to push her away. Even more unfortunate was that Nepeta was still straddling her lap, and it seemed that as they kissed Nepeta had subconsciously locked her ankles around Kanaya’s, so when she fell, Nepeta took Kanaya with her. They landed on the grassy ground with Kanaya on top of Nepeta and their faces close enough that they could hear each other breathe, that being said they were not as close as they were mere moments ago.

Kanaya got up first after staring into Nepeta’s eyes for a moment to brush her skirt off as an excuse to not look at her. When she finished what her act Kanaya looked at Nepeta who was still on the ground and from the look on her face, obviously upset at Kanaya’s reaction to their kiss. Seeing that ugly upset look on Nepeta’s face broke Kanaya’s heart; she reached down with a hand and a forced smile, “here Nepeta let me help you up.”

Nepeta just stared at the outstretched and Kanaya could see her eyes glisten like she was about to cry. “I’m fine, I don’t need your help to stand,” she said harshly and stood up on her own ignoring the outstretched hand. As she rose on her own she turned away from Kanaya quickly as harsh as her words had been so the other girl wouldn’t see her cry. But after refusing to look at Kanaya for a moment her small body seemed to fall and slump, completely different from the lithe huntress she was ten minutes ago. “I’m sorry,” she managed to say even though she was almost sobbing, but she kept her back to the girl; she would let Kanaya break her heart, but she wouldn’t let her see her cry over her. “I’m sorry for what I said and how I said it. And I want to be sorry for kissing you, but I can’t, I know I should, and I know you don’t feel the same way that I feel about you, but after getting so close to you the past day and when you called me beautiful I couldn’t help it.”

“Nepeta, you have nothing to be sorry for,” Kanaya said gently, she started to reach her hand out to place it on other younger girls shoulder for comfort, but hesitated and pulled it back.

“Of course I do,” Nepeta shouted. She started to slam her fists against her head as a form of punishment, “stupid, stupid, stupid, how could I have been so stupid?”

Kanaya watched as Nepeta punished herself in horror, “Nepeta stop it, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“So what,” Nepeta screamed, “maybe I deserve it. Why do I always feel flushed for people who are too good for me?” She seemed to settle down a bit though after that, enough at least to have a little more control of her voice, “I’m sorry I kissed you Kanaya, I just thought that you felt the same way that I did. I should have known better than to think that a beautiful troll like you could feel red for a troll like me no matter what you said about how I look. I put myself out there and you just shoved me away, I can’t blame you though.”

To Nepeta’s surprise however, a pair of strong yet gentle hands took her own arms and stopped her from hurting herself. Slowly Kanaya brought Nepeta’s hands and her stomach just below her chest and embraced the smaller girl in a warm hug from behind, though she struggled a bit. “I’m sorry that I made you feel like I didn’t care,” Kanaya whispered softly in Nepeta’s ear and the catgirl stopped struggling. “I like you a lot Nepeta, I didn’t push you away because I was mad at you or because I didn’t feel the same way.”

Nepeta slowly turned around, still in Kanaya’s embrace, “then why did you shove me away?”

Kanaya looked embarrassed at that, “I only meant to break the kiss, not shove you to the ground, but your lips kind of excited me and I pushed you too hard.”

That made sense, and now Nepeta felt stupid for over reacting but it hurt so much to think that Kanaya didn’t feel the same way. “So you do feel the same as I do,” Nepeta asked cautiously, after that scene she didn’t think there was any point in pretending she didn’t have feelings for Kanaya, but she didn’t want to get her hopes up.

Kanaya turned away a bit and looked unsure, “I care about you deeply Nepeta, and I think that I can say that I’m hopelessly flushed for you without being wrong. But I can’t be in a relationship with you, at least not now,” Kanaya said as firmly as she could even if she didn’t want to.

“But why not,” Nepeta whined a bit as she broke out of Kanaya’s embrace to face her on her own two feet. But she didn’t think anyone could blame her; here was this amazing and beautiful girl who she was flushed for and who admitted to feeling the same way, why couldn’t they be together?

“Don’t you think I want to Nepeta,” Kanaya professed, “don’t you think that I want nothing more than to sweep you into my arms and do things to you that would make it so you wouldn’t even think of looking at another person, troll, human, or other as long as you live. But I can’t okay Nepeta, the last two days with you have been wonderful but I just don’t want to rush things. I don’t want us to hurry and start a relationship only for one of us to get hurt afterward.” She continued to babble not making any sense, but her feelings were clear nonetheless.

Nepeta only watched Kanaya amused and ecstatic that her unrequited feelings were in fact quaited. It was her turn, she decided to calm Kanaya down; she took Kanaya’s hands and gently brushed them against her cheek. “Kanaya if you wanted to take things slow you could have just told me, I’m willing to wait for you as long as you need.”

“I-it may take a while Nepeta, I’m not exactly sure of what I want, I don’t want to make you wait forever,” Kanaya said worried about the future.

“Then we can still be friends if nothing else, but I’m going to try this crazy thing out if you’re willing, you’re worth it,” Nepeta said kissing Kanaya on the cheek.

Kanaya just cupped her cheek and asked, “is there anyone more purrfect than you?”

“That’s my thing, you can’t do that,” Nepeta fake pouted, but she couldn’t pull it off and they both burst out laughing.

3 weeks later:  
So for the next few weeks Kanaya and Nepeta would spend days and nights together growing closer. They did exactly as Kanaya wanted and took it slow; sometimes they would cuddle platonically, sometimes engaging in a few red feeling jams, and sometimes they engaged in strictly platonic makeouts; nothing too serious, but it was the most fun they had had in many sweeps. They had long since stopped caring about the rumors since they confessed their feelings for each other, even if they were still a piece of hot gossip for everyone around.

Nepeta was packing some of her clothes in a backpack excitedly; she was going to spend the night at Kanaya’s hive. She had several times before in the past weeks, but today she was, at Kanaya’s suggestion, going to leave some of her own clothes at her hive. Kanaya had made her several outfits lately and they all looked and felt amazing to wear, she didn’t care much about clothes still, but she cared that Kanaya spent the time and effort to make them for her. She shouted her goodbyes to Equius and left to go to her second hive, it was late at night, more early morning in fact, but she liked spending the day with Kanaya so she made it work, not to mention watching her rainbowdrinker wake up was one of Nepeta’s favorite sights. 

Nepeta walked down the familiar path to Kanaya’s hive waving to everyone she passed by letting her cheerfulness flow out into the world. She walked down an alley that she had walked down a dozen of times not really noticing what was going on around her until she saw Gamzee standing in her path. She froze when she saw him standing in her way, she hadn’t been alone with Gamzee since he killed her after the game and he still terrified her. She had almost forgotten the reason why she came to Kanaya in the first place, but standing before him in this dark alley it all came flooding back to her. “Hi Gamzee, how’s it going,” she said nervously.

But Gamzee remained silent to her greeting; he wasn’t even looking at her really; his head hung forward with his chin almost down to his chest unmoving. A quiet second afterward his head straightened up and he looked at Nepeta with his eyes glazed over and his mouth an almost solid line. Nepeta instantly felt the cold chill that she felt when she heard the voices from him before. “HELLO kitty BITCH,” two voices spoke up, but Gamzee’s mouth never moved, in fact he didn’t move at all as the voices talked. They seemed to come from behind him. “WE need TO motherfucking TALK,” was all the voices said as he moved closer to her, his jokerkind club dragging in the dirt as he moved closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I kinda lied about the whole Gamzee not showing up thing, so sue me. The whole three weeks after part was kind of forced on my part, but I really wanted to get the story going since there will be only about 8 or nine more chapters some relatively short at that so I didn’t want to leave the three week thing for the next chapter because I personally think it works better this way ending on a cliff hanger.
> 
> On a completely unrelated note, please read and review, they help me know who I am writing this story for other than me and will keep me focused on writing it since I’m also starting some other projects that may take my time. I have ADD so I lose interest in things easily and it is really helpful to the few of you who enjoy this story to let me know so I have an obligation. Also I know my grammar and spelling sucks so if you comment on that can you please tell me where and if possible what would sound better, it would be very helpful.


	14. Confrontation and Obsession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, it’s been a kind of crazy couple of weeks, GRE’s, exams, gradschool stuff, Skyrim, and my natural lack of attention have all been factors. Chapter 15 which is complete was also not really one of my favorites to write, but hopefully now that that is done I will be able to get some of the other chapters out faster.
> 
> I have also been working on other stories that are my own, because one day I hope to be able to support myself with books, so that has taken me away at times, but I promise that I won’t abandon this story. 
> 
> I have the ending planned out and when that’s done I plan on doing a couple of oneshots about this noncanon world that I’ve kind of made, about some of the other couples, some romantic, some about friendship, and of course some about the survivors of this story. 
> 
> I want to give a special thanks to Ticker, who reviewed and critiqued an earlier chapter 12 which I have re-uploaded in what is hopefully a better version that give a bit more in site on the characters feelings.
> 
> Thank you for all of the reviews, they really help me focus on writing, and critiques of my chapters always help, so if you like the story or have something interesting that you want to point out I would be most grateful.

Between Jade and Green Chapter 14

Nepeta was petrified of the highblood moved closer to her even though every instinct and voice in her head told her to run or gut him then and there. If it wasn’t for the instincts ingrained into her from living on Alternia and strengthen from the Game, she wouldn’t have even had her strife specibus out, even if it wouldn’t do her any good if Gamzee wanted to kill her. She should have listened to the voices in her head to gut him then and there, but she couldn’t do anything but wait for him to get closer to her and kill her.

Something about Gamzee was off, even more than usual. The air around him seemed thicker and had an indigo tint to it, it wrapped around his arms and legs like strings for a puppet and seemed to be talking for him instead of his mouth. The way he moved was awful as well, each time he would take a step his body would falter, like something was telling him to stop halfway through leading him to stumble and flop each time he moved closer. Even stumbling around he reached her with surprising speed; before her he stood towering over her looking down at her with his cold, almost lifeless eyes. Even though he was right in front of her and she could feel like she was being watched, Gamzee seemed to be looking past her rather than at Nepeta.

Nepeta could tell that this would be it; she would die here in this dark alley by the man who killed her before. But even though she knew she would die here she didn’t want to die frightened and cowering, if she was going to die she would go down fighting and defiantly. “If you want to kill me just do it,” she shouted at the highblood even though she felt her eyes get wet with tears. “I’m not going to beg,” she promised him. Quietly she thought of everyone she loved as she waited for the end; her kitty friends Ponce and Jaspersprite, her closet human friends Dirk and Jade, her troll friends Feferi, Karkitty, Tavros, Terezi, and Aradia, and of course her moiral Equius. For some reason she saved Kanaya for last, all she wanted to do was see the beautiful rainbowdrinker one last time before she died, but it would happen apparently. She was glad that she respected Kanaya’s wishes to take their relationship slow, but there were so many things that she wanted to do with her that she never would, and she regretted it more than anything. But her goodbyes were interrupted by a laugh.

It was Gamzee who laughed of course; there was no one else around. This time he actually used his mouth to laugh, it was an empty and hollow laugh that had no humor at all though, it made Nepeta shiver like his honking that he did on the asteroid. He reached out a hand towards her, but didn’t strike her or anything violent, he only cupped her cheek, “KILL you KITTY girl? WE don’t HATE you; WE’RE so MOTHERFUCKING flushed FOR you WE can’t STAND it.”

Even though he was amazingly gentle in his touch, there was an inherent wrongness that made Nepeta back away from him and slapped his hand away. She could handle him hating her, maybe even killing her if she could prepare, but this was wrong, that wasn’t how you expressed red feelings for someone. She turned and ran away from him as fast as she could, not caring where she was going as long as it was away from him.

But before she could get even a few feet away Gamzee flashed in front of her to stop her; as she skidded to a stop he picked her up by her throat with one hand and slammed her hard against the brick walls of the buildings. Up close Nepeta could see indigo blood leaking from the corners of Gamzee’s eyes like Sollux’s when he used his psionics too much. She couldn’t dwell on it too much though as Gamzee started to apply only a little bit of pressure on her neck, but she could feel it getting stronger. “WHY,” he demanded, “why ARE you DOING this TO us? WHY are YOU so PATHETIC that WE can’t STOP pitying YOU,” he roared.

Nepeta couldn’t answer and started to choke because of his hand on her throat clenched a bit tighter and could only gasp for air. This only served to enrage Gamzee more, “SEE that, YOU’RE doing IT again. WHY are YOU trying TO seduce US only TO reject OUR pity? DO you HAVE someone ELSE, fuck, IS that IT you WHORE,” he screamed at her.

Nepeta could barely hear him though, she was starting to blackout, “Kanaya,” she said as loud as she could with green tears running down her face, not sure if it was to call her to save her, or just to say her flush crushes name one last time.

“THE rainbowdrinker BITCH? that LOW blood DYKE is THE one YOU drop YOUR kitty PANTIES for RIGHT,” Gamzee lessened the pressure a little on Nepeta’s throat so she could breathe enough to stay awake. “she IS always GETTING in WAY of OUR fun, SHE should KNOW that SHE has NO right TO take WHAT’S ours.” He looked at Nepeta in a strange thoughtful way, “BUT that JUST means IF we SUBBJUGATE her THAN you’ll BE free RIGHT?” Diseased mind didn’t really want an answer, just someone to ask. Even so Nepeta tried to shake her head no, but she couldn’t even move it under his hand. “what’s THAT sound,” he asked with surprising fear and uncertainty.

Nepeta could hear it too now that so oxygen was getting to her brain, at least her ears worked even if her eyes weren’t back to 100% yet. It was a soft quick sound that seemed to be getting closer, pap pap pap pap pap pap pap PAP, before it was on top of them and Gamzee was punched right on the side of his face and dropped Nepeta as he went flying. Nepeta was caught by a pair of strong yet gentle arms before she hit the ground but she was barely aware of anything at the time. Even though her eyes were open she everything around her was blurry she could only see a harsh bright light in front of her eyes, but it was slowly getting clearer.

“Nepeta,” a worried voice called out to her and the harsh light slowly developed into Kanaya’s face. “Please be okay,” she begged, even in the state Nepeta was in she could see the worry on her face and it brought some comfort.

“Kanaya,” she coughed, “the radiant rainbowdrinker came for the injured huntress,” she coughed again trying to get as much air into her lungs as she could. “You came to save me,” it was barely a whisper, but she could breathe at least a little thanks to Kanaya.

“Don’t speak,” Kanaya tried to silence the wounded troll girl, her throat didn’t look damaged, but she needed to use it to breathe if she wanted to be able to move.

Unfortunately, Kanaya didn’t have time to make sure that Nepeta headed her advice as Gamzee was already up from where Kanaya’s punch had launched him. “HEY there RAINBOW bitch, WE were JUST about TO come AND find YOU,” he said with a slasher smile that once again didn’t reach his empty eyes.

“What are you,” Kanaya asked, she was one of the few trolls not terrified of Gamzee, she could tell right away that he wasn’t himself, this was even worse than when he was sober during the game. 

For a moment Gamzee looked surprised, but then let out another grin, “very ASTUTE rainbowdrinker, WE thought WE could FOOL everyone WHEN gamzee WAS sleeping, YET you SAW through US, how?” 

“I didn’t know, but I know that there’s something off about you. Even when Gamzee was sober on the asteroid he didn’t act like this.”

‘Gamzee’ let out a smile regardless, “THE young ONE is ASLEEP for NOW. HE’S tired FROM fighting US for SO long. BUT he’ll COME around AS he GROWS to REALIZE he is ABOVE you LOWBLOOD swill. FOR now THOUGH we ARE the HIGH motherfucking SUBJUGGLATOR!” it screamed as it charged Kanaya.

The two powerful fighters clashed, the High Subjugglator swinging his clubs without care as long as he could get a hit on Kanaya, while Kanaya was fighting defensively, only using her chainsaw to block his clubs, only punching or kicking to attack. They charged together to grapple with each other and the High Subjugglator took this time to talk, “WE’RE surprised KANAYA, we WOULD have THOUGH you WERE used TO losing A red PARTNERS that YOU wouldn’t BE so UPSET.” 

Kanaya knew he was trying to bait her and tried her best to ignore it, but there was something in the highblood’s tone that grated her. She decided to break the contest of strength, it stung to admit, but he was a little bit stronger than her and fighting his way would only make her the loser in the end.

But he wouldn’t stop talking now that he started, “though WE suppose IT only MAKES sense, YOU love TO fall FOR those WHO don’t CARE about YOU other THAN to USE you AS a TOOL,” he closed the distance between them and aimed a blow with his club to her head, but she saw it and used his momentum to toss him aside. Gamzee, or the High Subjugglator as he called himself, caught himself as he landed but still managed to stumble clumsily. “do YOU honestly THINK that NEPETA cares ABOUT you OTHER than HER attack DOG?”

“Nepeta trusts me,” Kanaya shouted as she charged him. It was a stupid thing for her to do and she knew it, but she couldn’t help but get enraged by the bard’s words.

She sent another punch to Gamzee’s face when it looked like his guard was down but he caught it in a manner eerily similar to the way he caught Nepeta’s claw on the asteroid. “yes, THE girl WHO you BARELY spoke TO during THE game AND before TRUSTS you. ITS not LIKE she HAD a SUPER strong FREAKY mutant OF a MOIRAL or PLEANTY of FRIENDS to GO to, NO she TRUSTS you.”

“She was afraid of this happening and didn’t want to risk the chance of Equius or anyone else getting hurt if she was right,” Kanaya tried to drag her arm out of his grasp but he held on tight.

Gamzee stood up and applied more pressure on Kanaya’s wrist forcing her to the ground as he stood up. “SO what YOU’RE saying IS that SHE didn’t WANT anyone IMPORTANT to HER to GET hurt, BUT it DIDN’T take HER very LONG to COME to YOU though. DO you KNOW why THAT is RAINBOWDYKE? because YOU don’t MATTER to HER, out OF anyone ON this PLANET who SHE could HAVE willingly PUT in HARM’S way, YOU were THE clear CHOICE.” He brought his club down to smash her skull, but his jerking motions made him miss even when she was so close to him.

Something in Kanaya’s heart broke when he spoke those words, she told herself that he didn’t know anything, but the seeds of doubt were planted regardless. She was the clear choice to someone like Nepeta, but was that only because Gamzee was afraid of her, or was it because out of everyone that Nepeta knew and considered a friend was she the most expendable? But Kanaya didn’t have time to let those seeds poison her mind since she had an opening; she brought up her chainsaw as hard as she could and stuck Gamzee on his side. If she revved it she could of tore through him like an imp, but she wasn’t sure how much of her foe was Gamzee and how much was those who were controlling him, if it wasn’t him she couldn’t very well kill him for being used.

Even though Kanaya didn’t rev her chainsaw before she stuck him, the force of the blow sent Gamzee away from her and freed her arm. He examined his wound and could tell that his arm could be broken from the rainbowdrinker’s attack; he was bleeding enough to show this wasn’t a game anymore. She was a better fighter than he was in his current condition, even if he was stronger and faster than her, it was possible that she could kill him. That would hurt his plans, so the High Subjugglator made a choice, “we’ll SETTLE this ANOTHER day RAINBOWDYKE,” he shouted as he broke away from her in a sprint towards his real target.

Kanaya moved to follow, but slipped on a rock and stumbled, she managed to recover, but cursed herself, that mistake could cost Nepeta her life. He was already fast than her by a little bit and Kanaya’s fall gave the High Subjugglator amble time to reach his prize. Nepeta still hadn’t recovered from her hurt throat and couldn’t do anything to defend herself when Gamzee pulled her to her knees by her hair. “prepare FOR a LOVETAP,” he half roared half whispered in a voice that could be assumed to him sensual. He raised his club up high with his free hand and prepared to bring it down on her head.

Nepeta braced herself for the impact as best she could, but it never came. Instead of pain she felt her hair released from his grip and hearing his club fall to the ground, “KiTtY sIs?” he asked in his normal voice almost as if he was unaware of his surroundings.

He didn’t have time to wonder though as Kanaya made it to them, she didn’t give Gamzee time to say or do anything in his defense as she batted him aside and slammed him against the wall. From the moment she hit him Gamzee was knocked unconscious, but Kanaya’s enraged mind didn’t register that. All she knew was that he had taunted her to get under her skin which had worked and was going to hurt someone she cared about; she couldn’t let him walk away. She kept punching him over and over again, his indigo blood sprayed from his mouth and nose covering her each time she hit him. Kanaya knew it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, but to her it felt like the beating had gone on for hours. It wasn’t until Nepeta wrapped her arms around Kanaya’s waist and begged her to stop that Kanaya even registered the rest of the world outside of Gamzee, the wall, and her.

Breathing heavily, Kanaya let Gamzee’s body slide down the wall and hit the floor. She thought that she would feel good after hurting him, but all she could feel was Nepeta’s arms around her waist. “What do we do now,” Kanaya asked her as she turned to make the embrace mutual.

“I guess we tell everyone,” Nepeta said with a cough. “I’m fine Kanaya,” she said when Kanaya reached to check her throat; “I’ll just have trouble breathing for a few minutes. We can tell everyone now, because this proves I’m not crazy right?” She looked at Kanaya with pleading eyes, as if begging the rainbowdrinker to tell her that everything would be alright. But Nepeta knew that her own words were a lie and when Kanaya didn’t confirm or deny them, her pleading eyes slowly turned to full on tears and she wept into Kanaya’s shoulder.  
Kanaya didn’t say anything; she didn’t want to upset Nepeta even more so she let the cattroll use her shoulder to cry on. With a free hand she took out her phone and posted an emergency bulletin calling all players, trolls and humans alike. Afterwards she took Nepeta and moved her into her laps holding on to her as if she was her lifeline to the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not actually sure if I did the scenes in this chapter justice, fight scenes aren’t my forte descriptively. If you are unsure about what happened, it is not sober Gamzee who’s menacing Kanaya and Nepeta, they are a completely different entity that is similar to sober Gamzee, but not quite the same thing, they are related though. There are 2 voices as usual though, the caps are supposed to be bold and shouted while the smaller is supposed to be italicized and whispered, I don’t know who to format it though so this is the best I got. The paps are also supposed to be bold and progressively get bigger, but again I don’t know how to format it to make it look like that when I post.


	15. Out of the Dark and Into the Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the newest chapter being so late, I wish I could say that there was a big important reason in my life that forced me to put off updating, but that wouldn’t be true. To be honest, I just have started a new story recently and I’ve hit the ground running, it’s one of my creations and I hope that once I finish I could do something with it. I also have had a problem with chapter 16, I have recently finished it, but I don’t have it to where I want it to be, but I feel that I put off updating too long. I do want to say however, that there is no way I will leave this story unfinished. I still enjoy writing it and I still love the ship, I hope to see more in the future of it from other writers as well. The story is coming to an end soon, only a couple more chapters and I think that since I realize this I subconsciously resisted writing because I don’t want it to end, but I will get over it.
> 
> That being said, I don’t want to upset anyone, but I wanted to give a warning that most likely I will not be updating the month of November most likely. I realize that since I said that I wouldn’t abandon the story and that I’m sorry for not updating, it sounds kind of hypocritical. However, some of you may know that November is new novel month, and I’m planning on working on that throughout November which will take me away from ‘Between Jade and Green.’ This does not mean that I will not be writing during this month, it just means that I won’t be giving it my complete effort and probably not enough to give a real update. I hope that you all understand, I’m not sure that this chapter is as good as it should be after such a huge amount of time of no action, but it’s the best I could do.

Between Jade and Green Chapter 15

“Why the Fuck wasn’t I told about this beforehand,” Karkat yelled more than asked at the room. All twenty players were in the same room, a few hand their strife specibus’ out but more for comfort than to use. Kanaya, Nepeta, Karkat, and Terezi stood in the center of the room while Gamzee was close to them behind bars, tied up, and unconscious. The building they were having their meeting in was the closest thing the players had to a jail, but it had never been used for anything more than a timeout before.

“As I told you before Karkat, Nepeta had her suspicions weeks ago, but she didn’t have any proof, she wasn’t even sure if everything she thought she heard was real or if it was in her head,” Kanaya said as evenly as possible. It was hard to do since it was obvious that the fight and the interrogation were taking their toll on her nerves. Nepeta was even worse, since Kanaya knocked Gamzee unconscious she hadn’t let go of Kanaya for a second, even when they had to move to the jail to discuss what to do with Gamzee Kanaya had to carry her inside; she was sleeping now, but even then she wouldn’t let go of the rainbowdrinker. Kanaya thought it was unfair that she got to sleep through the meeting, since now Kanaya had to explain the whole situation alone, but she couldn’t feel anger towards Nepeta. After the fight she was so frightened and fragile that Kanaya asked Feferi to give her something to help her sleep. Gently giving Nepeta’s head a rub to comfort them both; she made sure to avoid the cattroll’s horns, they weren’t that intimate yet and Kanaya didn’t want to take advantage of Nepeta’s trauma, especially in front of all of their friends.

“Still,” Karkat said trying to find something to argue about even though Kanaya made sense. “You should have told someone, what if Gamzee didn’t go after Nepeta or you, what if he went after someone else who wasn’t prepared for him and murdered them when they thought he was just normal Gamzee instead of sober Gamzee? What then Kanaya?”

Kanaya sighed, as loud and obnoxious as Karkat was, he did have a point, “part of it was that Nepeta asked me to keep our conversation a secret. Part of it, was probably because I didn’t want to believe that it was possible for Gamzee to become like he was on the asteroid again. It was bad enough the first time, when I fought him and put him down, I hoped that it wouldn’t happen again. You’re his moiral Karkat and Tavros,” Kanaya turned to the orange blood, “you’re Gamzee’s matesprit, did the two of you notice anything different about his behavior.”

Karkat yelled, of course not, but at the same time Tavros let out meek, maybe. All eyes turned to him when he spoke up, and he started to clam up under all the attention.

Aradia moved over from her seat near Equius and moved to comfort her old teammate, they were something like human siblings and she didn’t want him to get smothered by the attention. “It’s okay Tav, no one’s going to get angry at you,” she glared at everyone around daring them to prove her wrong. No one, not even Vriska, dared to anger the time goddess.

“Well it’s not that strange, at least not for Gamzee, but he’s been eating sopor pies again, a lot. I know he doesn’t need it anymore since the game ended for some reason, but when we started to make hives here I saw him eating one, but he just said he liked the taste. But now I find pie tins all over, he used to eat a couple a week, but now he’s eating a lot every day. I didn’t know if it was anything big and when I talked to him about it, but he just gave me a Gamzee answer so I let it go. I did mention it to you Aradia, and you too Karkat,” Tavros said trying to keep his voice from stuttering.”

“Yeah I remember, it was a while ago and I did talk the fucking idiot about,” Karkat admitted, not screaming for once. “He acted normal or at least normal for him, it was hard to decipher but he didn’t seem to be going crazy so I let the matter drop.

Before anyone else could speak there was a rumbling in the jail cell, Gamzee’s chains clinked and clanked as he rose his hands up to yawn, completely unaware of where he was. “Morning Tavbro,” was all he said his eyes still closed. But when he opened his eyes he saw that everyone was standing around him, watching him as he slept he looked a bit surprised, “what the fuck’s going on?” then he noticed the chains on him and the iron bars separating him from the others he woke up real quickly, “Oh please tell me that I didn’t fucking hurt anyone please.”

That surprised them all, the last time Gamzee went on a rampage when he was sober, but he the real Gamzee wasn’t aware of what happened when he woke up. “Alright you stupid highblood clown, what the fuck is going on,” Karkat yelled pointed his scythe at his moiral. “You flipped out again, and almost killed Nepeta if Kanaya hadn’t stopped you.” Gamzee seemed shock and ashamed, but he didn’t say anything out loud, instead he whispered something to Karkat. The mutant looked at Gamzee for a second before turning to the others, “alright, he’s willing to talk, but most of you fuckasses gotta leave. We’ll tell you what happened, but Gamzee apparently has stage fright in front of this many people so for now you have to leave.”

That caused a lot of fighting, mostly from Vriska and Eridan, over who got to stay and who had to go. The humans volunteered to leave first since it seemed more like a troll issue than the whole community, Vriska and Eridan were the most vocal, but eventually convinced to leave/dragged out of the building, after that Sollux, Feferi, and Aradia left since they felt that they weren’t as close to the issue as the others, leaving the six remaining trolls with Gamzee. “Alright you fucker, the almost everyone else is gone, spill,” Karkat said, but his voice wasn’t unkind.

“I started hearing these two voices in my head about two months ago,” Gamzee started. “They were similar to the voices I heard when I was sober on the asteroid, but they were also very different. For on they didn’t sound like me when they talked to me, it was more like some other trolls were talking, who just happen to be chilling in my thinkpan.”

“And this didn’t strike you as odd,” Terezi spoke up now. She was one of those who still had a grudge against Gamzee for the things he did when he was sober, he had played her like a fool and forced her to kill her rival.

“Well at first they were fine additions to the club up there, I’ve been hearing voices for a long time and these new ones just seemed like two more,” Gamzee said not really defending himself, but explaining all the same. “And they weren’t even violent or angry like a lot of the others up there; they were even helpful and friendly at times, so I didn’t mind them. But after a few weeks they started to change, they became more assertive and started telling me to do, ‘things,’.” Gamzee didn’t elaborate on what the, ‘things’ the voices told him to do, but the guilty and ashamed looks he gave Tavros and Nepeta gave them all a hint.

“If you were having these problems, why the fuck didn’t you tell anyone, especially Tavros or me, it’s kind of our jobs to look after you,” Karkat yelled, but it lacked the normal angry fire.

“They weren’t hard to resist at first, I guess because they were so different from me they were more like cheerleaders encouraging me, than puppeteers. But eventually they started to get angrier and louder each day, they even started to drown out the other voices in my head, like they were eating them,” Gamzee said with a shudder. “So I started to eat sopor pies again, it worked for the other ones so I thought that it would work for the new ones. And it did a bit, but I had to eat more and more to keep them quiet, by the time I realized that I had a real problem on my hands I was too stoned out of my gourd to tell anyone anything. But it was working for the most part; they’ve been like a whisper in the back of my head for the past few days, so I thought everything was cool, at least until today,” he said apologetically to Kanaya and Nepeta. “I didn’t even realize that they were controlling me until I woke up with you wailing on me Vampsis. I thought I was sleeping all day today.”

“Do you hear the voices now Highblood,” Equius chimed in.

“No,” Gamzee said closing his eyes trying to find them in his head, “they’re quiet for now.”

“Well that’s good for now, but what the fuck are we going to do with Gamzee now?” Karkat asked the question that they were all dreading. What did they do if Gamzee was going to go on rampages again, he could kill them all if they let their guards down, but it wouldn’t be right to just kill him, if it wasn’t his fault.

“We can’t kill him,” Terezi said knowing what everyone was thinking. “It wouldn’t be right to kill him like this, especially if he is just another victim,” she may have hated Gamzee for what he did back on the asteroid, but her sense of justice overruled everything save her love for Karkat, she wouldn’t let him be killed like this.

“Still, though it is the Highblood’s right to do so, we cannot let him simply kill us if it strikes his mood,” Equius argued. In truth, even now if Gamzee wanted to kill him, Equius would probably let him, but last time he did the Highblood killed Nepeta, and Equius couldn’t allow that again.

“Maybe for now,” Tavros spoke up nervously, “we can leave him locked up for now and maybe in the morning when we are all calmer and able to make a more rational decision Rose could see if there’s anything that she could do. She’s good with that talking about feelings and the brain stuff right.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Karkat admitted, “Terezi, your good with that mind shit; you can help Rose with that thinking bullshit tomorrow and see if there’s anything we can do for Gamzee, or if he’s a lost cause.”

Terezi didn’t look happy at the idea of spending more time with a crazy Gamzee than she had too, but she nodded her head to show she agreed. “Well since tomorrow is settled, what are we going to do about today?” Karkat asked the group.

“I’ll watch him until tomorrow,” Kanaya spoke up after being quiet for a long time. “I’m the logical choice since I’ve fought him before and I don’t need to sleep as often as the rest of you.”

“Are you sure Kanaya,” Karkat asked nervously, he didn’t want to say it but even if Kanaya was the ideal choice to guard Gamzee, he wouldn’t have picked her.

“I won’t kill him in when the rest of you aren’t around Karkat,” Kanaya said plainly knowing what he was worried about her watch Gamzee.

“Okay fine,” Karkat said in a huff not wanting to admit what he was thinking moments ago. “We’ll see you early tomorrow Kanaya and a few of us will visit every now and then to make sure you aren’t bored or anything,” the anything he left off, but Kanaya knew what he meant with the words he didn’t say.

Carefully, Kanaya and Equius were able to pry Nepeta’s sleeping form off of Kanaya, though she put up a surprising fight. Equius carried her back to their shared hive with a promise that she would be taken care of. As she watched Nepeta being carried away Kanaya felt a strange ache in her chest, she knew she was pinning after the cattroll, but she didn’t realize that it was this strong already. But she did her best to suppress that feeling, if she wanted to make sure Nepeta was safe in the days to come she would have to remain as focused as possible. 

Kanaya took out a laptop and put it on the top of the desk she chose to sit at so it would be readily available to her if she needed it. Then she took out her sketch book and started to work on some of the dresses she had been working on lately. Every now and then she would glance at Gamzee who decided to remain quiet in his cell to make sure he was still there. There were three living creatures in the jail today, Kanaya, Gamzee, and a salamander with a bushy mustache and silver start that said sheriff, it was going to be a long night.

3 hours before dawn.

Nepeta woke from her recuperacoon still feeling exhausted and she was frightened as she didn’t know where she was. She had woken from a dream where Gamzee had gone insane again and started killing everyone. It was only Kanaya and herself left until Gamzee tore out Kanaya’s heart with Nepeta’s strife specibus and moved on to her, that was when Nepeta woke up in a cold sweat. Then the memories of the day came flooding back to her, Gamzee going insane and attacking her, she didn’t really remember what he said, but the little that she did remember was enough to send shivers down her spine. But then Kanaya had come to save her like she promised, and that memory seemed to echo the storm of nerves in Nepeta’s stomach.

She checked her kitty clock on the wall and it was close to dawn, most of the others would be going to sleep now, that was unfortunate since Nepeta was full of pent up nervous energy from the encounter with Gamzee and sleeping all day. She walked over to her computer when she saw a message flashing, and when she checked it, it was from Kanaya who she desperately wanted to see. It was just a simple message, the jadeblood was bored from watching Gamzee all day and night since he hadn’t done anything and he had only said a few words all day. He was sleeping now and probably harmless, it might be the best time for her to come and be around him to build up her resistance so she didn’t freeze up like last time. If Nepeta was awake she was welcome to come over and kill two birds with one stone.

The message was sent half an hour ago, but Nepeta felt that it would be okay to go now. Equius and Aradia were already asleep, they had probably been up all day and night worrying about Gamzee, so Nepeta just left them a message and let them sleep.

Nepeta donned a scarf that Kanaya had made for her over the past few weeks and went to the jail that she knew they were holding Gamzee. The streets were empty, but given how late it was that wasn’t much of a surprise, still, if Nepeta was in a more stable mood she would have noticed something was wrong with tonight. 

The jail was a rather long way from their little town; in case they really needed to use it whoever would be locked up wouldn’t be close enough to harm anyone, but Nepeta made the trip in record time. But when she got there she was shocked at what she saw, the jail was in ruins, like the ceiling had collapsed in on itself. Kanaya was nowhere that Nepeta could see so assuming that she was trapped under the rubble, Nepeta ran to try and find her. Before she could reach the site of the destruction though Nepeta saw something that stood out form the rest; there was something sticking up from the rubble though, a chair sat taller than the rest like a throne. Gamzee was sitting on it, unchained and free, with a laptop on his lap open and ready for typing. But he seemed like he wasn’t even awake, he was more propped up on the chair and his eyes were rolled back into his head. 

Nepeta didn’t care though, “Gamzee,” she shouted, frightened as she was, if he hurt Kanaya, or, or worse…, she would make him pay. “What have you done?”

_“Oh don’t worry about him sweet one,”_ a soft feminine voice came from behind Nepeta. Nepeta turned around hoping it was Kanaya, but she knew right away it wasn’t, the softness in the woman’s voice sounded almost fake compared to Kanaya’s normally nurturing tone. It wasn’t Kanaya, it was a tall adult troll woman that Nepeta didn’t recognize, she was rather pretty, but in a snobbish way, even more so than Vriska.

**“YOU HAVE BIGGER THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT,”** “ another voice came from where Nepeta was facing a moment ago, but she couldn’t turn around fast enough to see as she felt a pain in the back of her neck and she hit the floor blacking out. 

The last thing she heard before completely blacking out was a weak, “kitty sis?” and she was unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter for what it was, I understand that some things may seem forced in this chapter, but I had the story already planned out and to keep the events in the same direction. I hope that it makes enough sense, but I understand some complaints, I just as that you suspend your disbelief for the moment and let the story finish and then judge since it should work out or at least make more sense when you see where I’m going with the story.
> 
> I think that you’ve realize that the voices in Gamzee’s head are more than just voices. I would like to ask anyone interested in giving two troll names, one male and one female, I’m sure you all can guess what it’s for, but I’m not giving any hints if you haven’t because that wouldn’t be right. I am not very good at coming up with names of trolls, but I know some people do with their own fantrolls, and I would be grateful.


	16. Highbloods and Protection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, New Novel Month took a large chunk of my time and class took the rest. I didn’t finish a new book last month, but I did get to the 50,000 words that we were supposed to reach so I think that’s something. I posted it in the general mythology section here and on fictionpress please check it out and any reviews would be most helpful, though I’m not sure how relatable the two fandoms are.   
> 
> 
> I finally finished this update and have the next chapter finished. I plan to upload 17 and 18 together before Christmas and then sometime after the New Year post the final chapter. So be on the lookout for them soon. 

Between Jade and Green Chapter 16  


A few hundred pounds of collapsed roof would crush most people, troll or human, at the very least it would leave them trapped for days without help. For a pissed off rainbowdrinker, it held for perhaps ten human minutes before she smashed her way through to the surface. When she was trapped Kanaya didn’t have time to think about anything but getting free. Now that she was free she struggled to remember what had happened, the last thing she remembered was Gamzee falling over and shaking and then just stopping. Then the chains around his body seemed to snap and he rose up with his eyes glazed over like before, like he was in a trance. He raised his hand and a bright light blinded Kanaya, a second afterward the ceiling of the jail came falling down and Gamzee flashed out the door before Kanaya could stop him.  


I need to find him dammit, it was my job to watch him, Kanaya said to herself. But a depressed popping sound from behind her broke her from her inner monologue. The salamander sheriff with the mustache unhappily blew bubbles trapped under some of the rubble of the jail. Kanaya moved over to where he was trapped and tried to move some of the rubble off of him, but when she started to, the rubble on top started to give way and fall. The Sheriff bubbled at her quickly hoping to get her to stop obviously, it looked like that he was safe for the moment, but if she tried to get him out Kanaya knew she could have ended up crushing him instead. “I’ll be back for you, okay. And I’ll bring help I promise,” she swore to him, and he solemnly blew a bubble up to her telling her to go.  


He assured her it was alright and that he would be fine, ashamed as she was to admit, Kanaya moved on to try and do something. She tried to find her computer so she could contact her friends to warn them about what happened. Unfortunately, when she found her computer it didn’t work. Somehow it was sabotaged so she couldn’t send messages to anyone or even leave the page it was on, but Kanaya didn’t care. If she couldn’t message anyone than she would have to go after Gamzee alone, it would be dangerous. Even if Gamzee was afraid of her at some level, Kanaya wasn’t sure if she could win; the first time she had the element of surprise on the three fighting highbloods and was able to defeat them.  


After the tumor exploded and they were sent to the new human universe she had fought Gamzee several times. Kanaya had always won, but she was always cautious enough to know that each time it had been close and if she made one wrong move during the fight than it would be her head on the table.  


And then it, indigo blood painted on the top of her computer messily scrawled a stab at her, “HA ha HONK.” Underneath the message, frozen on the screen was a message from her to Nepeta, one that Kanaya had never written or sent. But Kanaya saw in text the color of her blood and the message telling Nepeta to come to the jail and hang out. Something so simple, but it chilled Kanaya’s blood almost as cold as the stone the color was named after.  


Dammit I’ll kill him Kanaya swore in her head over and over again, each time sounding more and more like a monster than a troll. She felt the veins bulge under her skin and let out a roar. She felt good after that, but tried to suppress the feelings of ecstasy in her bones. Nepeta needed her now, not some monstrous rainbowdrinker so she forced herself to calm down. ‘Think,’ she reprimanded herself, ‘you’re no good to Nepeta like this if you can’t control yourself, so think instead of lashing out.  


There was a trail for her to follow, she wasn’t sure if it was intentional, but when Gamzee used his blood to write her that message she didn’t close his wound apparently. He was dripping his indigo blood all over and the trail would be easy from the scent alone to follow him, even through the forest at night. She knew that there was a good chance that she was walking into a trap, but Gamzee’s words from their battle earlier echoed through her mind taunting her of what he was going to do to Nepeta. And she imagined Nepeta, the sweet and lovely troll girl that had captured her heart, unable to defend herself against the Subjugglator’s advances, and she knew she didn’t have time to waste.  


As quickly and as quietly as she could, Kanaya followed the trail of indigo blood until she reached a clearing in the trees with a single unusually large tree in the middle of it. She was too far away to see clearly, but there were three figures at the base of the tree moving around each other, fighting from what it looked like to Kanaya, but she wasn’t sure. It didn’t make sense, there should only be Gamzee and Nepeta here; did one of their friends stumble across Gamzee in his villainous deeds?  


No, it didn’t feel like this was a good thing, somehow Kanaya could sense that. She moved closer and she couldn’t believe her eyes, it wasn’t Gamzee fighting Nepeta and another troll, it was Gamzee fighting two trolls Kanaya had never seen before. Kanaya couldn’t even see Nepeta anywhere close to them.  


Both of the trolls Gamzee was fighting were adults, Kanaya could tell by how they towered over Gamzee, one was male, and from the looks of it the other was female, both indigo bloods from the looks of it. Whoever they were, they were definitely skilled fighters; Gamzee had been one of the strongest opponents Kanaya had ever faced, but the two adult trolls were barely more than toying with him, beating him while lecturing him.  


Unsure of what was happening; Kanaya took out her chainsaw and moved closer to hear. **“YOU SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO US YOUNG ONE,”** the male roared. He was a hulking brute with horns like Tavros, his upper body was so large that he walked with his hands on the ground in front of his feet. Gamzee didn’t answer but bared his teeth and swung one of his clubs at the adult troll’s head. Without even trying he caught Gamzee’s arm before he could make contact and slammed him into the ground with a fist in his gut.  


_“What you do will have no benefits to you,”_ the female one said in a silky seductive tone. She was tall and lean, yet had curves that rivaled the Condesce; she would be quite lovely, if she didn’t have that psychotic smile on her face that didn’t match her tone. She moved to pick Gamzee up by one of his horns and then slammed her knee into his face, _“we will have out precious cattroll, and nothing you can do will stop us.”_ Gamzee reeled from the blow but steadied himself and lunged at the female. She merely shook her head and disappeared before he was able to reach her only to reappear above him and slam a high heeled foot into the back of his head before summersaulting off and landing next to her partner.  


Gamzee got up somehow though, and looked behind him to something hanging low from a tree branch and stood up the best he could. “You motherfuckers aren’t getting anywhere near her,” he roared. It was a valiant attempt, but everyone around knew that he was only posturing, he didn’t look like he had the strength to stand much less fight.  


The male practically sauntered over to the younger troll and picked him up by the neck. **“If you aren’t going to stand with us, than at the very least, get out of the fucking way,”** he said squeezing Gamzee’s neck choking him.  


Kanaya finally saw what they were fighting over, that thing hanging from the huge tree was Nepeta. She was unconscious and Kanaya could see a green bruise forming on her cheek, but other than that she looked alright and she was moving. The noise of the fight was so loud it caused Nepeta to stir and wakeup. She saw the scene of battle below her and didn’t know what to do, “Gamzee?”  


The three highbloods were surprised at Nepeta’s awakening that they all stopped what they were doing and looked up. _“Well,”_ the female highblood said her lips curling into a slasher smile, _“I guess our guest of honor is awake. Don’t worry sweetling, we’ll get to you after we finish up here. Oh I can hardly wake,”_ she said giving one of her breasts a squeeze and moaned in pleasure. Perhaps it was the way the highblood said it, perhaps it was the predatory look she gave Nepeta, but the cattroll couldn’t’ resist shivering, and Kanaya couldn’t resist growling.  


To the trolls around the tree, it looked like the dark of the night gave birth to Kanaya as she appeared from nowhere and slashed to adult male highblood across the chest. She would have cut through his neck if she was a bit faster or he was a bit slower, but a bloody slash across his chest was enough for now and it got him to let go of Gamzee. 

“Are you alright Nepeta,” Kanaya called up to Nepeta without taking her eyes off the strange highbloods.  


“I’m fine, but what’s going on,” Nepeta called down trying to keep her voice calm even though she was screaming inside.  


“Those voices that I said were in my head telling me to do stuff that I told everyone about earlier,” Gamzee said struggling to get up and stand beside Kanaya against the other two highbloods. “Well they’ve gotten stronger apparently, stronger than I thought they would be. I guess they can get along without me now,” he said with a wince as he clutched his side.  


He most likely had a least one broken rib as far as Kanaya could see without getting a closer look, but at least he was trying to protect Nepeta. Still even if he could fight beside her, Kanaya didn’t think Gamzee would last that long and if she had to protect him as well, neither would she. She only had one plan that came to mind, it would involve practically sacrificing Gamzee, but it was the best chance that she could see to victory. “Gamzee,” she whispered so hopefully only he could hear her. His head lowered a fraction to show he was listening, or he didn’t have the strength to keep his head up, but they didn’t have the time to waste so she kept talking anyway. “I don’t see any way that we can get out of this if we fight them 2 on 2, but it is possible that if we separate them, we may have a slight chance of victory.”  


He nodded as if the same realization came to him as well, “yeah, they work really well together; I think they can talk in their thinkpans or something. Each time I tried to attack them when heir backs were turned the other saw me and they could react before I could hit the fucker. Try and take the big one away, I don’t think I could stand another one of his blows, he hits like a freaking truck.”  


Kanaya nodded, she looked at the huge troll before her and didn’t like her odds even one on one, but this was for Nepeta she told herself and got ready. The two highbloods smirked at each other before charging at the two trolls before them that stood in their way. Gamzee and Kanaya met the charge in different ways; Gamzee dove/collapsed at the feet of the female who tripped over him while Kanaya dove on top of the huge charging troll blocking his sight. Unprepared for blindness, the huge highblood was unable to stop his huge body with the moment he built and brought the two of them farther away and deeper into the forest.  


One threat was gone for now, but even alone the adult female highblood was more than a match for a wounded Gamzee. She may not have been as strong as her companion, but she was faster, almost as fast as sober Gamzee was. Now that she was alone with Gamzee she let her fury be known, _“you pathetic, insignificant, grub,”_ she swung a War Hammer of Zillyhoo at him with each word. Gamzee was able to block the first two, but the third hit him across the face knocking him to the ground below. _“You know,”_ she said walking over to Gamzee dragging the hammer behind her as she moved, _“it isn’t necessarily that you chose to stand against us that frustrates me. No, what really pisses me off is the sheer ingratitude that you’ve shown Amacap and I in all we’ve done for you. You should be on your hands and knees saying,”_ she said bringing her clasped hands to her chin and mockingly proclaimed, _“‘thank you, Harldy, thank you so much for teaching me all I need to know and giving me this so beautiful and pathetic lowblooded catgirl to play with.’”_ Nepeta tried the best she could to resist shivering; the way the highblood called her beautiful sounded so wrong compared to the way Kanaya had said it weeks ago. _“But no, you throw our gifts in our face and instead treat us like we did something wrong. Well fine, if you don’t like our gift, Amacap and I don’t really need you around anymore anyway. We’ll take our present and have fun on our own,”_ she gazed up at Nepeta still strung up and licked her lips.  


“Well, I guess we don’t have to drag this out anymore since we don’t need you,” She said towering over the fallen Gamzee and raised the hammer to finish off the wounded troll. But unfortunately for Harldy, Gamzee had one last trick up his puffy clown sleeves.  


When the adult highblood game to turn him over to finish him off, he rolled over as fast as he could and pulled out shurikenkind, something that hadn’t been seen in a long time and threw it at her.  


_“Wow, I can honestly say that I didn’t expect that,”_ Harldy said sincerely in her own demented way. _“But come on young one, where the hell were you aiming. You may be a good shot with a bow, but you may want to practice with those throwing stars in the next life,”_ she said planting her foot on his chest.  


“Wasn’t aiming for you,” Gamzee said using the last of his strength to grab her foot and kept it there.  


Before Harldy could question what was happening green blur flashed across her line of vision and she felt a tearing pain in her chest. Looking like a goddess of battle instead of a frightened kitten was Nepeta with her action claws ready for battle. _“Oh come on,”_ Harldy said half laughing half mad, _“she’s your ace in the whole, the warm pathetic body we’ve been fighting over? She’s terrified of us, how is she going to do anything to me?”_  


As if to answer her question Nepeta lunged at her with the speed her upbringing as a hunter in the forests of Alternia could give her and slashed at her face. It the highblood was fast though and was able to dodge the worst of Nepeta’s claws, but the ‘pathetic’ lowblood still cut her face.  


“You’re kind of right. I am terrified of Gamzee,” Nepeta said letting the blood pump quickly in preparation for battle. She closed her eyes and remembered that Kanaya was out there fighting somewhere with a much larger highblood, putting herself in danger for her. She opened her eyes wild, “But you aren’t Gamzee, are you,” she let out with a roar and lunged at her opponent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The two highblood trolls are Amacap( as a reference to him being a Capricorn and Amalthea the goat who saved Zeus and Capricorn was named after) Naltio (last name courtesy of Pimu_Satis) for the boy and Hardly (as a play on Harley Quinn, from Batman) Vupesi for the girl (last name courtesy of Ticker)


	17. Defiance and Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, i tried not very hard to get chapter 18 up as well before christmas, but it didn't work out that way. Not gonna point any fingers, but Christmas snuck up on me, don't know how but i haven't felt that motivated to write on top of all the other holiday business i've been up to lately. I will hopefully update later this week after the holiday has past. The next two chapters will be rather short because they are kind of two parts of the same chapter.

Between Jade and Green Chapter 17

Hardly Vupesi reached down on her cheek; she touched her wound dripping indigo blood and watched the cattroll licking the back of her hands calmly in disbelief. She barely had time to dodge Nepeta’s last attack and was scratched again for lack of focus. She wasn’t surprised or anything, highbloods didn’t get surprised. No, what she was feeling was shock and outrage. This was not how things were supposed to go, that jadeblooded whore wasn’t supposed to arrive and ruin their fun, little Gamzee was supposed to be grateful for everything she and Amacap did for him, and sweet Nepeta was supposed to be cowering in fear from their slightest touch. She slammed the war hammer down to the ground, cracking the dirt floor in a temper tantrum, why were things going so wrong.

Her two opponents jumped out of instinct when the hammer smashed the ground; well Nepeta jumped away, Gamzee more stumbled. Well good, Hardly thought, that showed that they were still afraid of her. Well, if they were afraid of her, than that meant that Hardly could get into their heads again. She swung the war hammer up to her shoulder and gave them that toothy grin that everyone loved so much and charged, knowing that she had to break Nepeta first or she might not win.

Nepeta on the other hand was in a desperate situation, somewhere between wanting to dash out and help Kanaya or staying here to fight. If she left to fight Kanaya, a wounded Gamzee was all that would be here to fight this bitch and Nepeta didn’t think he would last that long. No, Nepeta knew she had to fight her own battles if she ever wanted to stand on her own without anyone’s help. Except for Gamzee, Nepeta admitted, but he probably needed this win almost as much as she did so she would let him fight beside her even if she didn’t trust him. Truthfully, even though she knew all the terrible things the two highbloods planned on doing to her, Gamzee still terrified her more than either of them. But she forced herself to think of him as the devil she knew and was therefore better than either of the two mental highbloods that had manifested. But even if she could think of Gamzee as an ally, he was too wounded to help much, even he would take some time to heal from his wounds so Nepeta would have to handle her on her own for now. 

Nepeta charged at Hardly with as much speed and power as she could muster, but this time the highblood dropped the War Hammer of Zillyhoo and exchanged it for a more suitable weapon to combat Nepeta’s speed. Hardly drew the Royal Deringer from her strife specibus and blocked Nepeta’s claws just before they reached her throat. The clumsy hammer might have been stronger than the blade, but it was much less graceful and would make it harder to block and hit Nepeta. The two-handed sword would still be slower than Nepeta’s claws, but it would give the highblood a much more level playing field against her target. They fought for a few minutes in silence, with only the sound of their weapons making noise as they lunged, stabbed, slashed, parried, countered, and all sorts of other fighting words at each other. Eventually they broke away from each other, both parties breathing heavily and covered in small nicks. 

Nepeta was definitely the winner of their last exchange though getting an extra-long cut on Hardly’s abdomen when she countered the highblood’s last slash escaping unscathed. It was the highblood’s first real damage in the battle, the first real damage between both of them in fact, but it was Nepeta who struck it so she counted it as her victory. She tried not to let it go to her head, but it was hard after getting the first blow in.

To her surprise though, Hardly laughed instead of screamed. It started out as an innocent chuckle, but eventually grew into a full on mad scientist laugh that froze Nepeta’s green veins cold. “Very good sweetling, I will admit that I didn’t expect this but I enjoy the foreplay nonetheless. Truly your body is a work of art, one that I intend to spend sweeps appreciating over and over again,” Kanaya had whispered something similar to Nepeta one day when she thought that cattroll was asleep, but it had sounded so much sweeter when Kanaya said it. When the highblood said it Nepeta had to suppress a shiver. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t plan to let Amacap kill the rainbowdrinker anymore,” Hardly said as she started to walk around Nepeta who shifted her body to keep the highblood in sight. “No, the jade whore is rather pathetic, almost enough to pity even perhaps when I want to give you a break. And though I loathe admitting it, she is quite beautiful,” Nepeta lunged at her but Hardly easily deflected it sending her spinning away. “Don’t be jealous sweetling, you’re pretty too.”

She’s getting sloppier, Hardly noted to herself; this was the button she needed to press to get Nepeta on her back. “But I suppose that she wouldn’t be as easy to convince in reciprocating my feelings for her I suppose and that probably goes double for Amacap I’m sure. She does seem to hate me for some reason, I don’t understand it but I’m flattered all the same,” her lips curled into a grin knowing that this would get Nepeta. “I suppose that I could engage in a black romance with her though it would be short. I doubt Kanaya is strong enough to survive a black lesion with me, but if it helps, she’ll be screaming from pleasure until she bites it all the same.”

And just as the highblood had planned, Nepeta let out a feral roar and lunged at Hardly’s heart with murder in her eyes. Hardly had been expecting this, had planned for it in fact though; she dropped her sword without care and grabbed Nepeta’s hand as her protégé had done so many sweeps ago. It had worked like a charm as the memories flooded back into the green blood’s mind of the day she died. Caught so easily after watching him strangle an Equius who refused to fight back, helpless as he broke her wrist and killed her as well, the memory of that day still haunted her dreams far worse than any memory of Alternia’s past. Nepeta collapsed with her hand trapped in Hardly’s vice like grip, she struggled to fight some more, but couldn’t muster the strength to do anything but look up into the highblood’s hideous indigo eyes.

“And now you’re mine, my pretty little pet,” Hardly whispered into Nepeta’s ear a sound that seemed all too familiar to the cattroll. “I’ll get you your own collar and leash, and we are going to have so much fun together, you, me, Amacap, and Kanaya.”

“Leave her alone,” Nepeta managed to spit out in defiance. 

“Oh I see my kitten still has a bit of fight in her, I guess I need to break you a bit so you become more compliant,” Hardly said squeezing Nepeta’s wrist. She wasn’t as strong as Amacap or Gamzee, but breaking the wrist of a lowblood was still incredibly easy for her. The bones snapped like twigs beneath her grip, but in Hardly’s twisted mind, it might have been a love song performed by a whole orchestra. “There’s no reason to be jealous sweetling, I was only teasing to get you to come over. I was planning on killing her to teach you a lesson, but I have much better plans for her. If Amacap agrees, I’ll make her a member of our little fuck pile, just like you. Don’t worry though sweetling, you won’t have to get jealous because I’ll make sure that you two never see each other again. You’ll each have your own room, locked from the outside of course, right next to each other. That since you won’t have to see it you won’t have to be jealous, but way you can hear everything you’ll be able to hear everything so it will be like you’re a part of it. Doesn’t that sound purrrrfect,” she said stretching out the pun just to hurt Nepeta more.

The thought of Kanaya being put through that hell gave Nepeta strength she didn’t realize she had. As soon as she was caught Nepeta condemned herself to whatever torturous acts the highbloods wanted to do to her, she had accepted it even though it killed her inside. But the thought of Kanaya, her sweet, gentle, beautiful guardian going through that same hell, no, Nepeta would never allow that to happen. “I told you,” Nepeta said dangerously soft pulling herself up using the highblood’s grip with her broken wrist. It hurt, but the image of Kanaya under these two monsters made her heart hurt even more and gave the strength and rage to fight through the pain. “To. Leave. Her. Alone,” she shouted driving the claw of her uninjured hand into the highblood’s guts. She stood up somehow and dragged it out through Hardly’s right side cutting her open.

As surprised as Nepeta was, Hardly was even more so as she struggled to keep her guts from pouring out. This was not happening, this wasn’t happening, she repeated to herself over in over again out loud and in her head. It couldn’t be, this wasn’t supposed to be how it went, “you little whore,” she spat at Nepeta who stood over her opponent’s crippled body unsure of what to do. “Do you think this is over, do you think you’ve won? This is nothing to me, I’ll be back stronger than ever and I won’t be so nice. I’ll make the things I had planned for you seem like a nice romantic scene from a romcom and you’ll thank me for it,” she roared.

“No,” a voice from behind her spoke up, “it’s over.” Those were the last words she heard as a pair of strong hands reached around from behind her and broke her neck in a single swift motion. Gamzee wheezed and huffed as he fell backwards to his ass, but he looked more at peace than he had in days. That was one down, he said to himself already feeling the ache of his broken body.

“Get up Gamzee,” Nepeta said cradling her broken wrist, but looked determined all the same. “We have to go help Kanaya.”

Part of him, a real part of him, wanted to tell her to fuck off, he was hurt, his bruises had freaking bruises, but he knew he couldn’t he owed the two of them far too much to deny her. “Yeah, kittysis,” he said standing up and leveling his club to his shoulder, “let’s go save your dame.”


	18. Blood and a Martyr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah… Finally an update… more than a month after I said it would be done. I’m sorry it took so long, laziness and dissidia duodessia, along with school, along with other stuff that will be explained at the bottom so the story can start quickly. But I would like to thank VladimirStronsvyesci, DoctorDisdain, leoRouge, and everyone else who commented on the story so far. The three mentioned by name though are just the most recent reviewers whose reviews helped me get off my butt and write the story. More on everything later, now with the story.

Between Jade and Green Ch 18

Amacap Naltio was rather vexed at the moment. Yes, vexed was a good word for how he was feeling. Tearing through the forest at his top speed, his lesion with a pretty lowblood interrupted, betrayed by the young Subjugglator he and Hardly were trying to mentor, and now another lowblood that he held a deep black for was hanging by his horns blinding him… yes, vexed was a good word for how Amacap was feeling. This was not how someone of his blood color was to be treated, this was the exact opposite. 

After going what she deemed a safe distance, Kanaya suddenly lurched to one of the highbloods horns and used all the strength she had available to bring him to the forest floor. She was able to jump off the massive troll before his body hit the ground, but she landed on her arm wrong when she rolled onto the forest floor. It hurt a bit, but with her mind burning with anger Kanaya barely felt it. This son of a bitch wanted to take Nepeta from her. He and his partner wanted to take her and make her into a shell of the beautiful girl she was. They would take Nepeta and they would hurt her in the most horrific ways that Kanaya’s troll brain could imagine. ‘I’ll tear their throats out before I let that happen,’ Kanaya swore to herself. But before she could lunge at the highblood a small shard of insight pierced the fog of her rage. ‘No,’ she told herself, anger was a good fuel for battle, but mindless rage wasn’t going to help anyone. No, she would have to adopt that same cold anger that filled her when she was first reborn as a rainbowdrinker. She closed her eyes for just a moment to remember that day. 

It was Kanaya, the reborn rainbowdrinker that frightened the highbloods so badly that they were still wary of her to this day. She had taken on three highbloods that day alone and smashed them beneath her feet. No, Kanaya the rainbowdrinker didn’t see an opponent or a highblood monster before her. Kanaya the rainbowdrinker saw a meal, a delicacy of rare indigo to feast on. She opened her eyes ready, and saw the highblood already charging at her with murder in his eyes. Unworried, she sidestepped his charge like a matador. As he past her she brought her Demonbane Ragripper, the best chainsaw she had, onto his leg. It tore his thigh up badly and he stumbled into the trees. 

Yet even in that clumsy display, with the slightest touch he tore several of the tall and powerful trees up from their roots. Perhaps he was a bit clumsy, but there was no doubt that Amacap Naltio was weak. He might even be stronger than Equius, Kanaya thought to herself cautioning herself. 

Still, as cautious as she was, she fought without fear and stuck him every time he missed her. A chainsaw wasn’t the best weapon for a situation like this, it was powerful and cut through anything it hit in a matter of seconds, but it was a double edged sword in a fight like this. The highblood’s skin was tougher than any enemy from the game, save perhaps Jack. It still tore beneath the teeth of Kanaya’s chainsaw, but it took several seconds for the skin to be properly cut which Kanaya was unable manage every strike in a dangerous battle like this. The other weakness of the chainsaw was that it wasn’t a sword, spear, or any weapon where the whole thing was a blade. On a chainsaw, only the chain did the cutting and though it was more advanced than most other weapons it was far more fragile, being made up of several different parts that needed to work perfectly together to be used as a weapon. Even a chainsaw like Kanaya’s Demonbane, which was made to kill, was a poor weapon in actual combat against a skilled or dangerous foe like the highblood. Still, whether or not the Demonbane is a good weapon in this battle did not matter. What mattered was that Kanaya knew how to fight with it as her strife specibus and she was good with it. 

After a few minutes of combat Amacap was breathing heavily and leaking blood from dozens of small wounds from the rainbowdrinker’s parries of his charges. Kanaya on the other hand, while she was breathing heavily as well, was uninjured at this point save for a few meaningless scratches that the highblood managed to win a few minutes ago. Amacap couldn’t think of a way to get around the rainbowdrinker’s speed so he decided to try another charge since all he needed was one lucky blow. 

This charge ended differently though in many ways. Firstly, Kanaya had been expecting it from a mile away since the highblood had yet to do anything different. Instead of simply sidestepping and slashing like a matador she jumped up when the highblood charged. As the highblood passed her below she used the added weight of her fall to get some extra momentum when attacking and brought her whole body behind her strife specibus. It didn’t end as well as she had hoped; Kanaya had managed to cut his arm in half, right down its length, however, she had meant to take Amacap’s whole arm off. This first thing was rather surprising for the highblood, but not really Kanaya since it was her plan, she was more disappointed. The second thing that went differently during this charge was that the highblood roared out in pain rather than his previous annoyed hisses. This didn’t surprise either combatant since getting one’s arm chopped off was assumed to hurt. The third change however from this charge, that surprised both combatants, was that moments after Amacap fell to the ground in pain was that his arm started to knit itself back together. His blood was still all over the forest floor and several of the trees from when he lashed out when he was hurt to prove that it happened, but after a few seconds the wound healed completely. His other wounds were also healing, slower than the crippling wound that Kanaya inflicted on him, but they would heal in seconds instead of the days they should need. 

Amacap was the first to get over his surprise and threw his head back in a twisted form of pure joy. **“It appears,”** he said, through ragged breath, **“that for all your courageous attempts, you cannot kill me. How interesting,”** he spat and charged immediately. 

Kanaya managed to dodge by a hair’s breath, but seeing the highblood shrug off a terrible wound like so easily had shaken her from her cold and calculating rainbowdrinker state. She was suddenly aware of how tired she was, she didn’t know how long they had been fighting, but she was exhausted already. But her fatigue wasn’t what was the most distracting; there was a gnawing pain in her stomach that she couldn’t identify. It was a familiar pain, but she couldn’t put her finger on it in the heat of battle. 

For the highblood’s place in the battle, he seemed to revel in his new healing factor. His attacks were wilder than they had been before, swinging and flailing his arms about when he charged at her in hopes of getting a lucky attack now that he didn’t have to worry about guarding himself from her. There was no doubt that Amacap and his counterpart Hardly were monsters among trolls, but they were far from stupid beasts. Amacap kept charging in like a boar, because he knew that he would eventually get Kanaya, even if it took a thousand tries. However, it wasn’t like he didn’t have a plan worked out just to fight Kanaya. When he saw her start to hesitate he knew that victory was close at hand. 

Kanaya tried to ignore the soreness of her limbs and especially the pain in her stomach, she took deep breath to try and calm her down. But it didn’t work; in fact it only made her stomach worse. She was able to identify the familiar pain though. She was hungry, not starving like she hadn’t eaten for days and it hurt to not have food in her stomach, but something else. The type of hunger pains that you get when you see or smell something delicious and you wanted some. When she breathed in deeply her nose filled with a tasty odor of something delicious, it was all around her and driving her mad. The highblood’s indigo blood that was all around them, it was a rare delicacy for her more in control moments. Gamzee’s blood tended to be half sopor slime whenever she drank it, but she tended to be tempted to try it whenever he donated his elixir to her communal store, it was just that good. Feferi and Eridan’s tasted better normally, but she had those regularly, she rarely partook in Gamzee’s since she didn’t want to be poisoned by it. The fact that it was even rarer than what she normally drank made her hunger worse. 

Her vision seemed to blur and she could see the lips of the highblood start to curl. How dare he, how dare he smirk at her with that disgusting painted on face. Highblood or not, he was still just prey, tasty and strong prey, but prey all the same. The next time he charged at her, Kanaya didn’t dodge, she was easily fast enough to when she focused back into rainbowdrinker mode, but her more logical mind was silent. Her whole mind was focused on two things; first, showing this cattle what it meant to be a predator and second drinking his blood. Digging into the last dregs of her strength she met his charge and stopped him cold. Before he could react to her stopping him, Kanaya tossed his head to one side and dug her fangs into his neck as was proper. No more drinking from bags or being taunted by smells, she wanted the real thing, she wanted to drink from the source. 

Sinking her teeth into the troll flesh and drinking felt almost orgasmic, this was how a rainbowdrinker was supposed to feed. Since the game ended she had only fed from a living troll once, Nepeta a week or two ago. As amazing as that had felt, it was like the difference between red sex and black fucking. With Nepeta it was sweet intimate moment between the two meant to bring both of them closer. Even then Kanaya had to force herself to stop before they went too far, but this was different. This was like when you have your kismesis unarmed, hurt, and by the throat, with no auspice around form miles. That sweet feeling in your loins begging you to go just a bit further to see what jubilation you would get when you actually kill the one you hate, knowing that it could only get better. 

But something was wrong Kanaya realized after downing a quick pint. The indigo nectar was delicious as it poured down her throat, but something was wrong. The blood was still just as sweet, but it was like as she drank there was something else, something rotten shoved down her throat. The two tastes were separate though, not mingled together somehow so she could still taste the addicting sweetness while being repulsed by the decay. Eventually she forced herself off of the highblood, coughing and choking she managed it, it felt like her body was hot with her veins full of poison. Her body wouldn’t even respond to her commands anymore as she swayed trying to keep herself standing still. Her vision got even worse, if not for the highblood’s massive size she probably wouldn’t of seen him standing in front of her. ‘What’s going on,’ she tried to wonder out loud, but to the best of her knowledge it just came out a messy slur. 

**“I suppose you are wondering what happened little rainbowdrinker,”** Amacap said surprisingly managing to sound gentle in his loud booming voice. It wasn’t real of course, but it seemed to be the highblood’s right to gloat when they were in a winning situation. He slowly moved closer, but to Kanaya’s addled mind it was if he flashstepped. **“Well than let me educate you,”** he said shoving her to the ground. He could have just used a finger with the way she was wobbling, but he enjoyed being able to use his strength on her finally. **“You see Hardly and I while we are separate entities from young Gamzee now with our own minds, bodies, and wills, we were formed from his flesh, and more importantly, his blood. The stuff is laced with sopor slime; it’s amazing he was able to go on without overdosing with the amount he’s been eating lately. It doesn’t affect Hardly or me for some reason, but it’s still in our blood, of which you just gobbled down like a greedy barkbeast,”** he said. Then he kicked her, in the shoulder perhaps, but there was something evil about kicking someone when they were down that just seemed to emanate, ‘Villain.’ 

Kanaya toppled over of course, she would have eventually even without him kicking her she was so unbalanced, it was a strong kick. Her strength, her speed, and her skills, they hadn’t abandoned her as she lay on her back. She knew they were all still there, but she couldn’t muster the mental ability to utilize them. She had never felt so helpless, not against Lord English, or Jack, not even when Eridan advanced on her after killer Feferi and destroying the matriorb and killed her for the first time with a weapon of her own creation. Even then she had tried to fight back even if it didn’t do any good. Now, she wanted to fight back, but her body didn’t even answer her commands well enough to manage a feeble resistance. **“You know,”** the highblood said towering over her like some sort of evil god, **“I’m sorry for you,”** when he saw Kanaya’s revulsion he let out a surprised chuckle, **“don’t worry, not in a red sense. I hate you, not enough to be black. It’s more like I hate you because you’re standing in the way of my goals. You’re too stupid to realize that you’re being used in a game you aren’t even at the table of, and that’s why I’m sorry for you.”**

“Shut up,” Kanaya struggled to get out. She started to move her body as much as she could, a bit of her fingers and lips but it was a start. 

**“Do you really think that Nepeta would want you when she could have someone else, anyone else? When everyone found out about us, she didn’t need you anymore; she didn’t even bother speaking to you,”** he sounded in his surprisingly even tone. **“She. Doesn’t. Want. You. Get that through the pretty little skull of yours. She was just using you to protect her, and since she doesn’t need you anymore she’s done with you.”**

Since the last time she fought the highbloods when they were in Gamzee and they had tried the exact same thing, Kanaya knew she should’ve just shrugged their attempt to break her off. But because of the sopor slime eroding her will and a shadow of a doubt that had always been there, she her resolve started to breakdown. Was she going to die a pawn for a girl who would never come to care for her the way she did for her. Kanaya knew that as much as it hurt to admit, she couldn’t blame Nepeta if it was true. It was a smart decision for her when confronted with what terrified her. ‘Maybe, she even enjoyed the time we spent together,’ Kanaya said to herself in attempts to cheer herself up. As the darkness started to cloud her eyes, and her mind traveled to what would happen after she died. ‘Maybe Nepeta would be assaulted by the highblood for a few hours,’ the mere thought made her almost gone mind burn, but there was nothing she could do. ‘but when our friends wake up they’ll put a stop to it,’ she said to herself as she started to drift away. ‘The two of them are strong, but there are more than a dozen players of the game, they won’t stand a chance. And everything will return to normal, just without me.’ 

‘Those three weeks that we had spent getting closer together were some of the best of my life, maybe that is good enough, even if Nepeta didn’t care about me the way I did for her,’ she thought as she could feel the last ebbs of her life slipping away. ‘She played her part very well and I enjoyed the time we spent together,’ she finished as her body started to get warm. ‘It’s my fault anyway I suppose, since she came out here to see me… Wait!’ her voice echoed into her consciousness, rousing her from her final rest. ‘That’s right, she did come here to see me,’ she said as she started to remember. ‘The handholding, the cuddling, the sweet stolen kisses, playing around at Our Place,’ it was like feeling her heart restart as she remembered. ‘That loving look in Nepeta’s eyes whenever she said my name, I don’t care if it wasn’t real on her part, it was real on mine,’ she shouted in her head. It took a lot of effort, more than she should have been able to muster, but Kanaya started to breathe deeper and fought with all she could against fading into the eternal sleep. 

She stood up, as amazing as it sounds; Amacap looked just as surprised as her probably as much as Kanaya was. Neither of them expected her to actually stand up. “Well look at that,” Kanaya taunted the highblood with false smugness. “I guess you aren’t as masterful of a planner as you made yourself out to be.” She actually was barely standing with what the sopor slime was doing to her head she was running on fumes. But the only thing she knew worked well enough was her mouth, so she used what she had left. She knew she should have probably spent it trying to buy time until she was able to control the rest of her body as well, but this was an opportunity that she couldn’t pass up. 

Amacap saw red, pure mutant candy-blood red, the worst color to a highblood. He dropped the gentlemanly act and charged once again with the fury of a wild beast. Faster and stronger than before, he didn’t want to hurt Kanaya, he wanted to kill her. He wanted her to die painfully of course, but the dying part was the main reason for this charge, and to wipe that smug cheeky smile off her face. He slammed her into one of the few trees in their troll-created clearing that still stood. The smile fell off of Kanaya’s face as she was smashed into the tree like a broken ragdoll; many of her bones were broken in the collision. Amacap wasn’t done though, he kept one of his massive hands wrapped around Kanaya’s shoulder and squeezed trying to shatter it, while his other fist was drawn back to punch her in the gut. 

When the highblood’s fist hit her, Kanaya doubled over in pain and spat out a mixture of indigo and jade blood. She had expected it to hurt, but she had expected the hurt of a very large fist, but it had felt like she had been stabbed instead. She didn’t have the strength to keep her head that high after he hit her and her head started to dip lower. She saw that it wasn’t just his fist that hit her; the son of a bitch was wearing Nepeta’s Action Claws. He slowly pulled them out of her guts; taking special precautions to make sure the hooks at the end hurt her as much as possible. 

He kept Kanaya pinned to the tree, but stepped back to admire his handy work a bit. She was broken and bleeding; if she lived, she wouldn’t be a threat to him, not any time soon anyway. **“I win,”** he whispered in his booming voice. **“You lose. Nepeta is ours. And the things we are going to do to her,”** he said smiling with all his sharp teeth. **“You’d hate us for telling you, but it would get your panties wet all the same,"** he threw his head back to let out an evil laugh. 

That was his biggest mistake though; it was never good to taunt a rainbowdrinker until they were ash, not a corpse. As she bled out Kanaya somehow found the strength to move. She drove the Demonbane Ragripper into the highbloods guts, “now we match,” she hissed as the highblood cried out in pain and shock. She closed her eyes for a moment to focus and to take a deep breath. Then she opened her eyes and turned the chainsaw on. She tore through Amacap’s left side dragging it through his outstretched arm that pinned her shoulder. She kept on her path spinning in a circle through the tree she was leaning against a moment before and returning to the highblood’s flesh, she didn’t even register the sound of the tree falling behind her; Kanaya was too focused on killing the highblood. It cut through the leathery skin of his right arm like paper before entering his body and returning to the place where she started her last attack, cutting his arms off and cutting him in half. 

Both the pieces of what was left of Amacap and Kanaya’s dying body fell to the ground in a slump. “No, you don’t win,” Kanaya said letting the fatigue take her body again, she counted herself lucky that she was bleeding out too quickly to really feel it though. 

**“You think this is over rainbow dyke,”** Amacap shouted, though it sounded like a whimper. **“I’ll be fine; you can’t kill me so this doesn’t change anything.”** He started to move towards his arms the best he could without a lower body and the bleeding stumps Kanaya hadn’t managed to cut off. It hurt like hell, but he knew that if he could just get to his arms he could finish off his enemy once and for all. But Kanaya wouldn’t let him, she shouldn’t have had the strength, but when he got close to one of his arms to reattach it, she stabbed it with the grooves of her chainsaw and dragged it farther away from him. **“You bitch,”** he spat. **“It doesn’t matter what you do, I’ll heal in a little bit and whatever happens you’re dead anyway. Hardly is still out there with only the half dead piece of shit highblood and a terrified catgirl as opponents. You lose,”** he roared. But as soon as he said that, Amacap’s body painfully contorted, “Hardly’s dead,” he said out loud out of shock. 

“I guess my kitten has sharper claws than you thought,” Kanaya taunted. She shouldn’t be enjoying dying as much as she was, but she couldn’t help it. She was going to die soon; she was going to heckle the bastard that caused it. He said something insulting trying to get her to shut up, but she could hear the fear in his voice and only laughed it off. He may not have realized it, but he gave her the best news to ease her suffering, Nepeta was still alive and she had killed the highblood bitch, or Gamzee had, whatever she was safe. She started to go back to that state where her she remembered the good times of her life, back on Alternia, during the game, her friends, the meteor, meeting the alternate universe version of the Dolorosa, her life on New Earthernia, and ending with Nepeta. ‘It was a pretty good life,’ she told herself as her vision was almost completely dark. But like before, the world wouldn’t let her rest so easily; the sound of heavy breathing roused her from her peaceful death. The highblood had managed to find his legs and was standing up, but he looked almost as good as she did. Hatred burned in his eyes as he snarled and snorted, but Kanaya just laughed it off. What was he going to do to her in her last few minutes, what could he do? He did look about ready to stomp her to death, the very idea made her laugh in her head again; it hurt too much to laugh out loud. 

Breathing heavily and getting closer to Kanaya the highblood started to raise his foot, “do it already,” Kanaya said almost lazily, she had no more strength anyway. But before the highblood could do anything, an arrow found itself lodged in his skull and he fell backwards dead. Kanaya blinked a few times, “well that was anticlimactic,” she said as she managed to turn her head behind her. Gamzee and Nepeta were standing there, well Gamzee was with a bow in his hands and it seemed he fired the arrow. Nepeta on the other hand was running towards Kanaya as quickly as her nimble legs could take her. 

Nepeta’s mouth was moving and it seemed to be directed toward the injured rainbowdrinker, but Kanaya couldn’t really hear what she was saying. She was however, staring at every inch of Nepeta that was in her view, checking to see if she was hurt. Nepeta looked a little beat up, too beat up in Kanaya’s opinion, but alive and no major injuries. ‘Thank Gog,’ Kanaya repeated in her head over and over again like a mantra. 

“Kanaya,” Nepeta half screamed with worry to the dying rainbowdrinker, “Kanaya everything’s going to be alright.” 

‘She’s lying,’ Kanaya said to herself. She is only saying that so to ease Kanaya’s pain and deny death, but Kanaya decided not to bring it up. She didn’t want to make Nepeta sadder after everything she had been through lately. Instead Kanaya just managed to roll her head to one side and struggled to raise her hand to her… friend’s, lover’s, something else’s cheek. “You’re alright,” she said rather stupidly in her opinion, as if that wasn’t perfectly clear already. 

Nepeta grabbed onto Kanaya’s hand and placed it to her cheek meeting her halfway. “Yes Kanaya, I’m alright. You saved me,” she choked out. Nepeta rubbed her cheek against Kanaya’s hand gently, it still hurt her, but Kanaya would have said it was worth it. 

Kanaya was barely aware of anything other than her hand’s tactile sense. It was odd to feel so good and be in excruciating pain all at once, perhaps not even possible, but she did. “Then it was worth it,” she said. Her hand started to feel wet though, that was odd, but she wasn’t sure what was happening, her eyes weren’t working anymore. 

“Kanaya, stay with me,” Nepeta begged. “We managed to contact the others, Feferi will be here soon and she will heal you up like that,” she snapped her fingers and let out a forced giggle. “Please Kanaya, don’t leave me, I love you,” she said completely unashamed. “I know we decided to take it slow and not rush into anything too quickly, but I realized it weeks ago. I loved every minute we spent together, and I know I love you. I’m not afraid of saying it, I’m not afraid of maybe getting hurt, but I am afraid that I might lose you, so please, don’t leave me here alone.” She begged Kanaya over and over again through tears. 

Kanaya did want to listen to Nepeta, but she was just too tired. Her body wouldn’t listen to her anymore and she faded off to sleep with her hand warm and wet, and the faint sound of whimpering in her ears. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry this has taken so long, as I said above, there have been a lot of things going on that have distracted me, laziness, duodissia, school, but it was also a very hard chapter to write. I am not the best at fightscenes yet, though I hope I am getting better, and I wanted to make sure this was a good one or at least the best I could make. It was also difficult to write because there were many angles that I had to think about. Originally Between Jade and Green was going to be much shorter while being basically the same thing. The ending was going to be different in that Kanaya was going to fight both the highbloods only to have Gamzee permanently kill them redeeming him and letting Kanaya be the hero. I didn’t want to go completely with this, because I thought it weakened Nepeta’s character, overpowered Kanaya, and made the highblood threat not that threatening, which is why I changed it. That made this fight scene harder to write since again I didn’t want to diminish the threat of the highbloods while weakening any of the main characters. So I wasn’t sure if I wanted Kanaya to win the fight since it might make Amacap and Hardly too weak of a threat. I decided on this turn of events to make it more believable but it took some time, and I’m not sure if it came out well enough. The next chapter will be the last one of this story, and I’m not sure how long it will take to write and post, but when it is done, I will not be done with this universe. I plan to write oneshots to follow up about the main pairing and others in this post Homestuck world. So this is the end of my rant, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and remember, reviews are always helpful and they get me to get off my lazy ass.


	19. Chapter 19

Between Jade and Green Ch19:

Kanaya’s whole world was darkness and pain. As far as her eyes could see, there was one an inky black in every direction. She wasn’t even sure if she was floating in the darkness or if she was falling and there was just nothing around to use as a measure. She tried to close her eyes once and there was no change to her, she couldn’t even tell if her eyes were open or closed anymore. It was also very quiet, as far as Kanaya could tell there wasn’t any sound whatsoever in this strange world that she was locked in. She tried to scream to see if this was true, but her throat was cracked and dry she only managed a weak squawk. And even then Kanaya wasn’t sure if she heard the actual sound that came from her mouth or if it was just her mind telling her that she made that sound. With the darkness all around her and unsure if sound even existed anymore, Kanaya was in for a very unique and surreal experience. But the novelty of it wore off quickly, especially with the constant pain making her more and more irritable. The situation Kanaya was in was very unique; it was also iron nail to the brain boring. At least the dream bubbles and the meteor had different sights and sounds to make the three year trip interesting, this was just blackness. 

The pain and boring darkness became almost unbearable to Kanaya so she tried to pass the time by delving into her own head to entertain herself instead of relying on this strange world. She stretched back as far as she could remember, when she was slightly more than a grub on Alternia, to the game, to afterwards during the human session, and ending with her time on New Earthernia. She went through that cycle twice, before forcing herself to stop, if her memories were going to be her only form of entertainment than Kanaya knew she would have to ration them. But even as she tried to think of something else, anything else, something gnawed at her like an itch. It was something to do with her most recent memories she knew, but the last thing she remembered was a dream. Something about being chased by some sort of monster, but she couldn’t put her finger on why that was important. So against her better judgment Kanaya tried to reminisce about her dream. 

“I was the girl being chased in the dream,” Kanaya said half out loud and half in her head. “I was about to be cornered on a cliff when the large catbeast started to close in on me. Than something happened,” she said to herself pounding at her head trying to remember. It didn’t quite work as her head was already pounding, but she managed to remember something else, “no, it wasn’t a catbeast. It was a woman, yes, the woman was a warg, she turned into the catbeast to chase me, but she turned into a woman when I was cornered. But then it wasn’t me she was chasing, it was another girl who happened to look like me, I was just an invisible observer then.” 

“The warg troll was massive, but also incredibly beautiful,” she continued working through the memory. “She was also naked and had her way with the maiden. It was rough and animalistic, brutal even, but in the end it was just a game they were playing. The two of them work actually matesprits who were engaged in a bit of roleplaying,” she said out loud. At the mention of roleplaying her thoughts drifted to Nepeta and she couldn’t help but smile. Beautiful and sweet Nepeta, the roleplaying rogue was very similar to the warg troll, down to the amazing body and kissable lips. 

“Wait,” Kanaya shouted out in the open darkness, “why did I just think that about Nepeta? I mean she certainly is lovely… and sweet… and beautiful,” her voice grew quieter as she added more compliments to her beloved. “No stop that,” Kanaya said slapping herself trying to stop that line of thought. The pain in her head started to become unbearable the more she thought of the other green blood of their little group. Why did it hurt to think of her of all people? Yes, Nepeta was wonderful in every way, but the two of them had never been that close. Had they? 

Curious now, Kanaya ignored the pain and tried to think of all her memories of Nepeta. There weren’t many at first, a few friendly chats over Trollian, and pleasant conversations on the meteor, occasionally checking out the cattroll’s gorgeous ass, but that was it. Wait, there it was again, that inappropriate stream of thought that started and stopped abruptly when she thought of Nepeta making her heart pump faster. It was like there was a block she had to work through, a block of excruciating pain that hid the meowmories that she had of Nepeta. Kanaya ignored the pain though and drove through the block with renewed vigor, desperate to get to the bottom of this. She saw herself spending time with Nepeta; the time they spent had been wonderful. The mere memory seemed to hold back the reservoir of pain alone. She remembered the chaste kisses they exchanged, the cuddle piles they engaged it together, defending her from the highbloods. That was it, she started to remember her battle with Amacap, a highblood that manifested itself out of Gamzee’s psyche. He had lusted after Nepeta with another manifestation and Kanaya had battled him to protect her. She died in that fight, and when she remembered her body flooded with pain again. “I was dying and he towered over me ready to kill, but then he died somehow. And then Nepeta rushed over to me, that’s right she was safe,” Kanaya said. 

She felt a gentle wetness on her face, and when she touched it they were tears, “that’s right, I was dying, but I was okay with it, because I managed to save Nepeta. I was okay with it…,” she started to trail off. “Because,” she eventually continued slowly. Like what she was about to say was a bold proclamation to the whole world and all universes, “because I love her. I was okay with dying, with the pain, all of it, because she was okay, because I love Nepeta Leijon.” 

The world she was trapped in grew brighter, the darkness seemed less boring and scary. Even the pains started to fade, it didn’t completely go away, but it definitely lessened. She started to be pulled away, by a gentle force, Kanaya didn’t know what it was, but she felt like it was right to go where she was pulled. 

For a moment the world became dark again with no light to speak of, but then air forced itself into Kanaya’s lungs and she shot up from where she was laying and her eyes opened as she panted. Her body was still in pain, but it was a sore dull pain of recovery, and for some reason that felt wonderful. Panting, she tried to look at her surroundings to see what this new place was, but it felt strangely familiar. 

“Fussyfangs, you’re awake,” a familiar voice came from the outskirts of Kanaya’s vision. She turned as fast as she could, but she wasn’t quick enough and she was stuck at her side by a cerulean hug missile. “Thank gog, you’re alright Kanaya,” Vriska said burying her face in Kanaya’s shoulder so she couldn’t be seen. “Don’t scare us like that again,” she sounded horse, like she had been crying. 

“Vriska,” Kanaya asked questioningly, unsure if this was the world she thought she left. This overly affectionate Vriska was not something she was aware existed in her world. “I’m alive? Is Nepeta alright” 

“Yeah Fussyfangs,” Vriska said straightening up and wiping the tears from her eyes as if Kanaya didn’t see them before. “You’re alive and you’re awake and don’t worry, Nepetas fine. You’ve been asleep for two weeks, we weren’t sure if you were going to make it,” she said in a choking voice as if the memory was painful. “But you’re awake now, so that means you’re safe,” the relief was clear in her voice. 

A bit more lucid now Kanaya managed to look around completely. She was in hospital room lying in a hospital bed. Her body felt tired and sore, but she knew she was alive. She started to climb out of bed, but winced as soon as she tried to move her body more than a few inches, her whole body was in agony. “Whoa there Kanaya,” Vriska said as she forced the jadeblood back to a lying down position, “you might have been taking it easy the past two weeks being in your coma and all, but that doesn’t change the fact that you had like half of your bones broken. Even with the gill-queens healings and your rainbowdrinker physiology, you’re going to be sore for a while. I’m surprised you’ve been down for so long actually, I mean during the game you had your whole stomach blasted apart, but in a matter of hours you were back on your feet kicking the ass of a few highbloods.” 

“The game was a rather special circumstance. Additionally, according to some lore, when a rainbowdrinker first awakens their healing abilities are at their strongest, so they recover from whatever trauma they have gone through in life and return in a state of undeath,” Kanaya started to explain. “After that they are physically stronger and tougher than a normal troll, and they heal from minor injuries quicker to. But major injuries, like the ones Amacap gave me… well, I still heal faster than any of the others would have, but it still takes me a long time to fully recuperate.” When Kanaya finished her explanation she looked around the room for anything. After being alone in the dark for so long her eyes drank in every bit of color and form they could. It was only Vriska and her in the room, “two weeks huh. And only you were loyal enough to stay until I woke,” Kanaya halfheartedly joked. It wasn’t like she had been expecting everyone to be crammed into her room waiting on baited breaths for her to move a little in her coma, but only Vriska cared enough about her to stay, that kind of hurt. 

Reading her face, Vriska let out a half mocking half sincere laugh, “not even Fussyfangs. It’s late in the day and I’m just the only one who had Kanaya duty at the moment. You’ve had a no end of visitors to watch you get your beauty rest. Vantas and Lalonde have been here every day standing vigil over you waiting for you to show some signs of life, but they’ve worn themselves out and went to stretch their legs. Peixes has been here every day for 8 hours a day pouring her energy into you trying to speed up the healing process. She said she didn’t know why you weren’t waking up after the first few days, but she refused to give up and ran herself ragged trying to get you up each day. She’s sleeping things off too. Jade’s been here a few times, you can thank her for the frog plushies,” Vriska said pointing at the, frog that was a hair under obnoxious sitting in a chair beside her bed. “Other than that, most of the others have been in here when they have the time to check up on you,” Vriska said with a shrug. While Kanaya was happy that the others cared enough to visit she had been hoping that another name would be on the list Vriska had raddled off. 

“Except for that kitty girl of yours that is,” and Kanaya perked up. “Nepeta’s has been practically glued to your bedside the past two weeks, night and day, without food or rest. I may not like her very much, but even I have to respect her for that,” Vriska said sincerely. “If not for Equius dragging her away at times, I don’t think she would have left at all. That’s where she is right now, down the hall sleeping in one of the beds like a freak. I know you wanted to know about her even if you didn’t want to actually ask.” 

On the inside, Kanaya was practically doing a happy dance. Nepeta cared about her, cared enough to the point of exhaustion, which Kanaya wasn’t so happy about and would talk to her later, but cared nonetheless. She tried to play it off cool though, “thank you for getting me up to date Vriska, I appreciate it. Though I could do without the teasing,” she finished without any real fire. 

“No problem,” Vriska said nonchalantly as well choosing to stare at her fingernails to give her an extra aura of arrogance. “But you shouldn’t expect any special treatment with me not teasing you, just because you’re sick. Teasing’s what friends do,” she said it at first keeping with her air of aloofness, but when she realized what she said she froze. 

‘Were they friends,’ Kanaya wondered to herself in the awkward silence. The two of them had danced up and down in all four quadrants, but after they broke their red relationship they didn’t really have anything else to fall back on. They had started off as moirals when they were much younger, only to move to the ashen quadrant when Vriska was off playing a black pirate romance with Eridan while Kanaya flushed for Vriska in silence. Then they broke off all quadrants a bit during the game and on the meteor at Kanaya’s insistence. After everything went to hell and Kanaya was reborn as a rainbowdrinker, they had flirted with the idea of a black romance of their own, but neither really had it in them. Finally, when the game was over and they started to settle their new planet Vriska had insisted that they at least try a matespritship which crashed and burnt. Vriska had tried to go back to the way things were when they were pale, but Kanaya had already filled that position with Rose and refused to auspice for her anymore leaving them once again free from any quadrant. Vriska, being Vriska didn’t like this setup of course, and tried everything she could to lure Kanaya back into any one of her quadrants that were still empty. And when rumors of Kanaya and Nepeta’s relationship started, things got even rougher. Vriska seemed like she was entertaining the idea of forming a black relationship with Nepeta out of spite. They hadn’t really spoken about them since that day at the bar and the tension between the three of them when they saw each other was awkward to say the least. 

But even after all that, Kanaya realized, she missed Vriska’s company. She didn’t miss her as a lover or as a moiral, but she just missed Vriska. “Listen Fussyfangs, Kanaya,” Vriska said correcting her from using Kanaya’s nickname. She threw herself into an empty chair and buried her head in her hands, “I just wanted to say… I’m sorry alright,” she practically gagged whispering the words out, but Kanaya heard them the same. “Not for you know, trying to get between you and you little cattoy, or anything like that. But you know, for everything. I’m sorry I wasn’t a good moiral and made you work yourself ragged trying to keep me in check. I’m sorry I didn’t notice or care about your flushed feelings about me during the games. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t a good enough matesprit to you when we were together and the way I treated you when we broke up,” cerulean tears were running down her face now, but Vriska didn’t seem to notice. “I tried like 8 thousand different things to get you out of my head and my life, or I just wanted to fuck with you out of spite. I wanted to pretend like you didn’t mean anything to me alright. But when I saw you broken against that tree in the forest something inside me hurt. I realized how much of an important part of my life you were, you still are Kanaya,” she finished for the moment and the room was quiet. 

Kanaya just stared at her ex in shock that she was willing to let herself be so vulnerable in front of her. She could count on one hand the amount of times Vriska shed real tears in front of her, it was still such an odd thing to see. She watched Vriska and felt… something. It wasn’t like when they were back together, when Vriska had hurt her hurt and all that jazz. But it hurt to see her like when she saw anyone of her friends in pain. “I miss you Fussyfangs alright, there I said it,” Vriska shouted suddenly. Wiping tears from her eyes she seemed to gather more strength as she continued, “not like I want to get back together or anything, or that I want to start torturing your with visions of my lovely body again,” she attempted a feeble joke. “I know you’re happy with Nepeta, and even if she bugs the hell out of me, if you’re happy, I’m happy okay. I just miss you like I miss you alright. I miss you being a part of my life, even if it’s just as friends I miss you alright Kanaya,” she shouted like she was expecting Kanaya to stop her and shut her down if she wasn’t quick enough. 

“It’s okay Vriska,” Kanaya said without even thinking, “I miss you too,” she admitted. It was hard work keeping the spidertroll inline, usually a lot of hard work with little thanks, but it was satisfying at times. Even if she didn’t want to go back to an actual quadrant relationship, the thought of Vriska not being a part of her life terrified Kanaya. “I like my life the way it is now, broken bones and all. I like having a matesprit who cares about me a hell of a lot,” she said engaging in some rare cussing. “I like having a moiral that can give as well as take, even if she doesn’t completely understand us trolls,” she said smiling thinking fondly of Rose. Vriska managed to look guilty when she said that, perhaps she misinterpreted what Kanaya was saying. “But as much as I like my life, I can’t imagine a life without you in it Vriska,” she said kindly and Vriska looked at her eyes as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’ve helped me grow and change in ways that I don’t think either of us will ever completely understand,” she continued, “and I want to keep it that way. So while I’m not willing to let whatever is going on between the two of us get in the way of my already happy relationships, I would be more than happy to be your friend again,” she finished holding out her hand for Vriska to shake. 

Vriska’s eyes started to water again, but she quickly wiped them away and put on her arrogant persona. “Well someone’s a bit big for their britches, all you did was wake up after sleeping for a shitton of time. Damn Kanaya, show some humility. You’re offering me your friendship, not Mindfang’s journal or any good gift.” 

“Well if my offer isn’t lavish enough for you I apologize,” Kanaya said knowing Vriska too well. “If I have insulted you I apologize and will take my offer off the table,” she continued but Vriska interrupted her. 

“No need to go that far,” the pirate flarper practically shouted as she jumped out of her chair to clasp Kanaya’s hand with both of her own. “I mean it’s not much, but an experienced treasure hunter like me knows you have to make do with whatever you find,” her cheeks were a brilliant shade of blue. She let go of Kanaya’s hand and started to walk out the door, “I sent out a mass message saying that you woke up, so expect to be mobbed by a bunch of halfbrained morons, I’m personally going to get out of here before the lovefest starts,” she said almost out the door. But she stuck her head back in before leaving completely, “I just wanted to say, you know, thanks for being my friend again,” she said through colored cheeks. She retracted her head before Kanaya could do anything but chuckle at her grublike behavior. 

True to Vriska’s prediction, almost everyone came to see her when they heard that she had woken up. From Rose and Jade to the salamander sheriff with a mustache, Kanaya’s room was packed with people happy to see her awake and asking what the fuck had happened, (that was Karkat). There were only three people absent from Kanaya’s waking-day celebration, Vriska who had just left. Gamzee was locked in another, more secure cell, until he was cleared by Terezi, Rose, Feferi, and for some reason Dirk. He sent a message with Karkat saying that he was sorry for everything that had happened and that he was happy she was awake. Karkat also said that Gamzee mentioned something about what she did for love’s sake was nothing short of miracles, which was odd, but it sounded like they had gotten the old Gamzee back once and for all. Aradia was also missing, she was the one watching Gamzee at the time, but one of her doubles stepped in to wish her well. She also mentioned something about a book she had read that would help her get back into shape after such grievous injuries with the help of her matesprit. Kanaya blushed at the mention and muttered a very embarrassed, thank you. Speaking of which, Kanaya looked all over whenever she had a second of quiet for a flash of green in the shape of a kitten at the party, but such a thing never caught her eye. It was starting to frustrate Kanaya, as all she wanted to do was see Nepeta and talk to her, but that seemed impossible. 

Eventually the party died down after an hour or so when the turtle nurses started to chatter on about it being too noisy for healing patients and demanded most of them leave. Or at least they demanded as much as two foot tall turtles wearing pillbox hats could demand of their heroes. Still, everyone seemed to take the hint and they started to funnel out of the room, most gave their last well wishes to Kanaya and left. Only Equius was still in the room kind of nervous, he had wished her well like everyone else did when he came in, but it seemed that he want to talk to her in greater detail in private. When the last guest exited Equius started to move towards Kanaya who gestured for him to take a seat. With a nod of gratitude Equius took the offered chair, though it sunk slightly underneath his massive frame, it gave him the chance to compose his thoughts. “I am happy to see that you are alive and on the lamb,” he started rather stiffly, but Kanaya knew he was sincere, even if sincerity wasn’t his strong suit. “I am actually beside myself with giddy-upness in joy in fact,” he continued awkwardly. “I wanted to speak to you in private, Miss Maryam. About matters that happened those two weeks ago. I wanted to say thank you,” he rushed the words out, “you know, for protecting Nepeta. I know that as a candidate for her potential matespritship it was part of your duty to defend her, but still, Nepeta is a very important part of my life and I wanted to let you know how grateful I am that you protected her against the highblood menace.” He choked out the last few words. Even after all that has happened; it was still hard for Equius to admit that highbloods were not only flawed, but often batshit insane. 

Still, the feelings were there and Kanaya accepted them gratefully, “you are most welcome Mr. Zahhak, but to be honest, you can keep your thanks.” She realized that what she said might have been mistake for rudeness, “what I mean is, I was happy that I could help protect Nepeta because I wanted to, not just to be thanked.” 

Luckily, Equius understood what she meant and nodded. “Well still, Nepeta is very important to both of us so I still thank you. It isn’t much, but if you recall a few weeks ago you asked me if I had heard about two trolls, Artemis Starfang and Minalu Westsing? I didn’t find anything when I first looked and to be honest I didn’t have much to go on so I stopped. However, since you stepped in to save my beloved moiral, I thought I owed you at least another try to find things out so I looked again when you were unconscious about the names. I checked with Aradia who had also heard of them as well,” Kanaya’s heart began to swell. “Unfortunately her copies of the actual books were also lost in the destruction of Alternia. However, she had some digital copies on one of her computers that she let me look through. I sent them to your email when I found them so you could look through them yourself, but I am prepared to summarize the story if you would like,” he finished by clearing his throat. 

That was good news, “please Equius, if you would give me your quick summary I would appreciate it. I will read through the story myself probably tomorrow since I have nothing else to do, but I would like answers now instead of a story,” Kanaya replied. 

“Very well,” Equius began shifting his glasses and sitting down in Kanaya’s empty chair. He told her how the two trolls from her dream were born thousands of sweeps ago, even before their ancestors. They were matesprits though it was a tragic relationship as Minalu was a jadeblood and page of the empress of the day, while Artemis was an outlawed greenblooded noblewoman who acted as a bandit in rebellion against the empire. After sometime the empress found out about their relationship and sent her champion the Grand Highblood to deal with the two of them. Equius then broke off on a tangent, “some records say that the Empress was flushed for Minalu and sent the order out of jealously, but I haven’t found any proof so that might just be romantic’s version of the tale.” He went on to explain how the Highblood used Minalu as bait for her matesprit and killed them both when Artemis came to rescue her. Artemis was beheaded and Minalu was stabbed through the stomach and left to die. “However,” Equius broke the storytelling atmosphere again, “apparently sweeps later at a ball held in the Empress’s honor, a wicked figure with skin that glowed in the darkness of the party and killed the empress and her highblood by cutting off their head. They described the figure as a troll that wasn’t a troll, she was faster than they had ever seen and normal weapons were said to be as effective as splashing her with water. She was supposed to be dripping jade blood from a wound in her stomach when she arrived at the ball, so it is possible that she was Minalu Westsing. The story is actually quite famous though the names are often changed, they attribute the act to Countess Brightday,” Equius started. 

“The first rainbowdrinker,” Kanaya finished amazed at the story, if it was real. “Thank you Equius, for the story and the copies of the books, I will be most interested in looking through the tale tomorrow. Now, I am sorry to be rude, but even though I have spent the past two weeks asleep, I am surprisingly sleepy. If you would,” Kanaya let her words hang in the air. 

“Of course,” Equius said giving Kanaya a little bow before starting towards the door. 

“Oh Equius, another thing before you go,” Kanaya said through a yawn. “If you could, when you get back to your hive, would you ask Nepeta to visit, I would like to talk to her tomorrow if she’s willing.” 

This seemed to surprise Equius, “I would be perfectly willing, but truthfully, Nepeta hasn’t been home in days. She has been here the vast majority of the time or at your hive. I will be sure to send a message along when I return,” with that he gave her another nod of the head and headed out the door leaving a sleepy Kanaya alone to think about what he said. 

However, even though she tried to stay awake, her injured body just couldn’t stay awake so she drifted off to sleep. A few hours later she woke up; at least her mind was up, Kanaya kept her eyes closed with the rest of her body protesting her awakening. Her consciousness started to return to order in her body and she noticed that there seemed to be something on her hip, she could feel a familiar weight. Her jade orbs fluttered open the sun was down still, it was probably early in the morning and she saw a head of someone she loved resting peacefully on her hip. She couldn’t help but let out a small giggle at the scene and gently placed her hand on Nepeta’s head. “Nepeta,” she said softly, “Nepeta wake up please, I need to talk to you,” she said pushing her softly to rouse her from her sleep. 

Nepeta sleepily rolled her head to face Kanaya though she was still half asleep; she let out a purr of pleasure as Kanaya played with her hair. Her eyes bolted open however when she realized that the lovely girl playing with her hair wasn’t a dream. She practically jumped out of her chair and ran towards the door, “Nepeta wait,” Kanaya called to her. Like a spell, Nepeta forced herself to slow down and slid to a halt when she reached the door frame. “I don’t know why you’ve been avoiding me, but please, I need to talk to you. So please, can you at least stay?” 

“I wasn’t trying to avoid you,” Nepeta said, she walked closer to Kanaya’s bedside again, but she was still looking at the door like she wanted to escape. “I might have, but I didn’t want to, I’ve been hiding outside of your room since you woke up, I walked back in after Equius left and you fell asleep.” 

“Nepeta, I’ve was awake for a few hours when everyone came over. You’ve were outside that whole time?” Kanaya was half confused and half impressed, from what she had learned about Nepeta since they started their strange relationship she knew that Nepeta was bad at being patient and waiting. 

“Yeah,” Nepeta said, she was still looking away from Kanaya, but she was turned just the right way that when she rubbed her head in embarrassment Kanaya could see her blushing green. Nepeta started to talk again, but Kanaya had been so preoccupied in thoughts of tackling the cattroll and kissing her into submission that she only caught the end of what Nepeta finished what she was saying with, “and I hid in the ceiling tiles when someone came or went. I don’t think anyone saw me,” she added a bit proudly. 

“You could have just come in,” Kanaya started, but decided not to press the point, “but regardless, I am happy to see you.” She was surprised how warm she felt talking to Nepeta; it was like good feelings were injected into her veins, like she was drinking blood from the source instead of a neck. ‘…That was probably a poor analogy to use when thinking about my relationship with the recipient of my flushed feelings,’ Kanaya mused to herself. She was wondering why Nepeta wouldn’t even look at her, she supposed that she should have seen this talk coming though. Ever since she woke up and Nepeta had been avoiding her, Kanaya had had a lingering doubt that Nepeta wanted to break off whatever relationship they had between the two of them. She didn’t want to believe it, but Nepeta’s distance since she had awoken and the way that she wouldn’t even look at her seemed to support this theory. Kanaya knew she had failed her; she couldn’t protect Nepeta from the highbloods and had wound up almost dying because of one of them. That had been proof that Kanaya was both unworthy to be her protector and a potential matesprit. 

“How can you,” Nepeta screamed uncontrollably. Kanaya watched with wide eyes as Nepeta’s eyes glistened with an even more unbelievable shade of green, shimmering with unshed tears. “How can you be happy to see me after everything that’s happened, everything that’s been my fault,” the tears started to fall now, but Nepeta just rubbed them off of her face with her coat sleeve and continued. “You’ve been hurt badly, you’ve been in a coma for two week and you almost died, how on Earthernia can you be happy to see me. It’s my fault,” she pathetically whimpered unintelligibly. She managed to gain a moment of control and started to talk again, “even now I want to tackle you and hug you so badly and try to just kiss away your wounds, but I can’t. When I think about how hurt you are, I can’t help but remember that I’m the reason why you got them in the first place.” 

Kanaya didn’t want to feel this way, but she couldn’t help it, when she saw Nepeta crying, she marveled at her beauty. ‘But that it isn’t the time for that,’ Kanaya chastised herself. Finding her voice, Kanaya said, “come here Nepeta,” she held out her arms for Nepeta to come into her arms. At first Nepeta seemed hesitant and didn’t move, but it looked like she wanted to. Then Kanaya repeated herself a bit stronger and, somehow, softer, but again Nepeta stayed where she was. After that Kanaya decided enough was enough and jumped out of her hospital bed, it probably wasn’t a smart move, but she didn’t care. Kanaya closed the distance between the two of them in an instant and pulled Nepeta into her bosom and gently stroked her black hair. “It wasn’t your fault Nepeta,” she whispered, “I made my choice Nepeta and I don’t regret it. The one who is at fault is dead now, and he can’t hurt either of us. So please, for me can you stop blaming yourself,” she asked in the most soothing tone she could muster. 

Nepeta couldn’t stand listening though and tried to push herself away from Kanaya and retreated a foot away. The distance wasn’t much, but it felt like a canyon and hurt Kanaya’s body and heart, but she chose to hear what Nepeta had to say. “It doesn’t matter if those two highbloods were the one to actually hurt you Kanaya, I’m the one who asked you to protect me, I’m the one you put you in danger, everything that’s happened to you is my fault,” she whimpered. 

Kanaya knew she should listen to what Nepeta had to say, but sometimes you just had to screw politeness. She wouldn’t, she couldn’t allow the girl she loved to do this to herself so she reached up and closed the distance between them. She brought both of her hands to Nepeta’s cheeks, “Nepeta, please listen to me. I know that you are feeling a lot of things right now, probably guilt and fear, and I will be willing to each and every one of those in a little bit. But before, I need to say something important to you, so I need you to be here right now. After Vriska, I was afraid of opening my heart to anyone, I thought if I did it would leave me vulnerable to that hurt again and I didn’t think I could stand it. That’s why I put off consummating our relationship for so long even though I knew after a few days that I had strong red feelings for you,” Kanaya admitted and then paused a moment to appreciate the beauty of Nepeta’s eyes, they were focused on her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered. 

“When you found me after my fight with Amacap and I thought I was dying,” Kanaya continued breaking her short trance, “after I saw that you were alive and okay, I was fine with it. I was okay with dying if you were safe; I knew it was worth it. I know now, that if I would have fought a thousand highbloods a thousand times over, dying each time, if it was for you Nepeta. I love you Nepeta,” Kanaya said out loud with their eyes locked. She was amazed that she was still in so much control after saying something so embarrassing, but she was far from ashamed. “If you don’t feel the same way, if you do and want to run to make sure I never get hurt again, if you do but you’re too afraid to say the same thing, it doesn’t matter to me. Because I love you Nepeta Leijon, and nothing in this world or any other can make me stop loving you,” Kanaya finished and pulled Nepeta in as strong of an embrace she could manage. She was exhausted from that proclamation and she was terrified that after spilling her heart out like that it would turn out that Nepeta really didn’t feel the same way, but she was done hiding. Kanaya had done all she could have been asked to do in the name of love and more, she was done, now it was Nepeta’s turn to say something, anything. 

For a few minutes they stood like that with Kanaya’s arms around Nepeta. To Kanaya it felt like days passing, at first Nepeta didn’t return her hug and Kanaya felt her eyes water as she focused on her love’s tail. But slowly and unsurely, Nepeta’s hands found their way around Kanaya and pulled the two of them closer. After a few minutes of the embrace with only the quiet sounds of tears as a score, the two of them broke the embrace. “What if, what if something like the highbloods happens again, what then,” Nepeta questioned softly. 

“Well then,” Kanaya said surprisingly confident, “that won’t stop me from loving you. But if that does happen, how about you save me next time

For the first time Nepeta chose to stare into Kanaya’s lovely jade orbs under her own power, “I love you too Kanaya,” she whispered at first. “I love you Kanaya,” then it became a sound that someone would speak normally, then she pulled away from Kanaya a bit but took her hands in her own and shouted, “I love you Kanaya Maryam, with all the heart a Rogue of Heart and stand.” Before she gave Kanaya a little childish headbutt so their horns touched. 

They giggled a bit through the happy tears like two young grubs with their first flush crush. They kissed, first shyly then more passionate as they tried to explore and memorize every part of the other’s lips and tongue. They slowly inched back to Kanaya’s bed with their kisses getting more and more heated, they had seen each other in various states of undress before, but now they wanted to feel it. They stopped though, when Nepeta’s wondering hands touched Kanaya’s tender stomach that was the spot where she had been stabbed. It hurt her, far more than it should, not enough to kill the mood, but enough to remind them that Kanaya was still recovering. “I’m sorry Nepeta,” Kanaya said feeling guilty, “as much as I want to explore our relationship more, I don’t think we should risk doing something excessive tonight.” 

Nepeta just lied down to the side of her matesprit and kissed her on the nose, “don’t be silly Kanaya, we have the rest of our lives to fool around in a bunch of wild places, we can stop for tonight. Nothing is more important to me than your health.” 

“You’re already sounding like a wife,” Kanaya said laughing at her tickled nose. 

“A what,” Nepeta asked confused. 

“The human version of a matesprit, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow alright.” 

“Okay, fine,” now Nepeta was kind of curious, but she let it go for Kanaya’s sake. 

“I still am really sorry we couldn’t go to the next step because of my injuries, I promise to make it up to you,” Kanaya told Nepeta in a way she hoped sounded sexy. She assumed she succeeded when she saw Nepeta’s face blush a bright green, her own face felt heated as well, but they laughed it off. “I love you Nepeta, I’m sorry, I just can’t stop saying it,” she laughed. 

“That’s fine Kanaya, I love saying I love you to you too,” Nepeta said in her confusingly adorable manner. Blushing green, she turned to Kanaya’s jade colored face, and for the last time that night, but far from the last time, Nepeta brought her lips to Kanaya’s and they met between jade and green. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so that is the end of this story, but not the end of their story. I hope those you who have lent your time to read this fic enjoyed it. I made some choices here at the end that I wasn’t entirely sure about, I meant to imply that Hardly and Amacap were the past empress and highblood, but I wanted to leave it up to your own imagination. And I apologize for the shameless title drop at the end, it sounded better in my notes, but tell me what you think. I also kind of wanted separate the chapter so I ended on twenty instead of nineteen but I decided against it. There was a lemon planned, but since this is my first real fic that I finished, I wanted to not have a lemon for it. Nothing against lemons, but I just didn’t want to this time. This is the end of between Jade and Green, so read and review.


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